


In Undertow

by glimmiks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassination Attempt(s), Bounty Hunters, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Minor Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Moral Ambiguity, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, hi hello yes this is my excessively plotty emotional support fic, ish?, its a mess and i like it that way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmiks/pseuds/glimmiks
Summary: Few would choose to leave the Jedi Order, but after what transpires on Umbara, no one blames padawan Iona Orum for doing so. It seems impossible for her to stay, not with her master's lingering influence, even from beyond the grave. And it's certainly not possible with Rex around.And so they make do. While Iona travels a rapidly changing galaxy and Rex fights an ongoing war, the undertow that they're caught in brings them closer and closer together. And maybe, second chances are in order.*on hiatus*
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 69





	1. Electric Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex hates General Krell, but he could get used to the new commander.

_ 20 BBY — UMBARA _

Rex is sick of Umbara long before the carrier shuttle arrives.

It’s dark everywhere, he’s almost been shot in the back, and Fives has been humming the same song since they bombed the ridge  _ fifteen minutes ago _ .

So when Pong Krell, a seven and a half foot tall ugly-as-bantha-shit alien with four arms and a chin like a frog, comes to order General Skywalker away by request of the Supreme Chancellor and take over in the interim, it’s a  _ huge _ thorn in his side.

But he can tell that leaving distresses the General even more than it does him, and that just won’t do. “Don’t worry about a thing, sir. We’ll have this city under Republic control by the time you’re back.”

General Skywalker relaxes slightly. “Master Krell, this is Captain Rex, my first in command. You won’t find a finer or more loyal trooper anywhere.”  _ _

“General’s golden boy,” Rex hears Fives snicker to Dogma, just loud enough for Rex to hear. 

He resists the urge to roll his eyes in front of Krell as the Jedi Master gestures to the figure on his right. Rex almost doesn’t notice the girl standing just next to him, considerably shorter, a lot more human, a lot less ugly. “This is my Padawan, Iona Orum.  _ You _ won’t find a finer or more worthy apprentice anywhere.”

If the compliment goes to her head as it would to Commander Tano’s, she doesn’t show it on her face. Orum inclines her head in a greeting. “General Skywalker. Captain.” 

Even without two feet of height and the enormous ballsack chin, the girl is just as intimidating as Krell. Rex estimates about seventeen or eighteen, tall and lithe, a long dark ponytail that frames a pale angled face with small, dark, diamond-shaped markings along her cheekbones and forehead. She’s strikingly pretty, the kind of pretty that you see in a bar and desperately want to talk to, but don’t because you’re scared of getting your ass kicked in front of all your brothers. The girl that you see drinking water and babysitting while her friends take vodka shots and get fuck-drunk, and gives death glares to the sleens that ogle them. 

Yeah.  _ That’s _ the look that she’s got on her face right now.

“Glad to know my troops are in such good hands. Though, I must defend my own Padawan’s honor here. She might give yours a run for her money.” Anakin chuckles.

Orum’s lips quirk upwards in a small smile. “Ahsoka Tano would be a worthy opponent. I’d be happy to test that theory of yours, Master Skywalker.”

“Another time. I wish you well, Skywalker.” Krell puts a hand on Anakin’s shoulder, as if to waste no more of his time. Anakin takes the hint and boards the shuttle, Krell not taking his eyes off of the aircraft until it has left the atmosphere and they can no longer see it.

“Your reputation precedes you, General. It is an honor to be serving you.” Rex tries to keep the irritation and fatigue out of his voice. He’ll kiss some ass if it makes his job easier.

“I find it very interesting, Captain, that you are able to recognize the value of honor, for a clone.” Well, never mind then. Rex catches Fives’ eye from a little over, who raises a single eyebrow as code for,  _ What’s wrong with this guy? _

“Stand at attention when I address you,” Krell suddenly snaps at him. Surprised, he does. It feels like cadet training all over again. “Your flattery is duly noted, but it will not be rewarded. There’s a reason why my command is so effective, and it’s because I do things by the book. That includes protocol.” He barks the words in the direction of Fives, who looks ready to shoot himself in the face. “Have all platoons ready to move out immediately. That is all.”

As he leaves, Fives and Hardcase throw Rex a pointed look, but he shrugs. Krell’s the General now. He’s allowed to be an ass. They were probably getting soft from Skywalker’s buddy-buddy treatment anyways.

Rex remembers the Padawan just as she appears at his elbow, seemingly from out of nowhere. “Oh, Commander, you—”

But she brushes past him without a word, not even an acknowledgement. The closest he gets to one is a brief second when their eyes meet, electric blue irises flashing at him through the thick Umbaran mist. And then their shoulders collide and she’s gone, gliding after her master like just another shadow on this Maker-fucked planet.

Fives is the first to raise the question everyone is thinking. “What the fuck?”

___

Alright, so completely  _ ignoring _ the Captain was a little unnecessary. 

In Iona’s defense, she’s been awake for thirty six hours straight and Krell had just finished chewing her out about her pants being on inside out when they got out of the transport shuttle. She doubts that it even breaks protocol, but Krell will give her shit for anything these days. It’s not like anyone would even notice, much less care. Black synthetic cotton looked pretty much the same from any angle you sliced it. 

And then she went and was a bitch to her troops. Not just the troops, the  _ Captain _ . What a fantastic start to a fantastic mission on an even more fantastic planet.

“Is there something on your mind, young one?” Right on cue. It’s as if every time she’s feeling uneasy or upset, Krell can pluck those emotions right out of her head and read them as clear as day. Almost a decade together as Master and Padawan means that he knows her almost better than she knows herself. Iona hates it more than she’s allowed to say. It also means that she’s gotten much better at lying around him.

“No, Master. Perhaps it's something with this planet. I’m...”  _ Annoyed. Pissed off. Fucking exhausted. _ But no, she’s a good Padawan, and the last thing she wants right now is to come under his fire. He’ll only scoff and tell her that _ real _ Jedi Knights can function properly after four hours of sleep and 18 hours on their feet, and if she can’t handle anything less, he’s been too soft on her. “...just concerned with the troops.”

“As am I,” he rumbles. “You can never trust clones to carry out a task properly.”

It’s not fair at all, but Iona bites her tongue and continues. “Clones value loyalty above all else. If we are to effectively secure this planet for the Republic, perhaps we should work to win their loyalty for ourselves.”

Krell’s lips curl into a look of disdain. “Do not forget, young one, that clones were bred for war. They were bred to serve. I shouldn’t have to win their loyalty, because I should already have it.”

“Then allow me to help secure their loyalty,” she offers. “Master, if it pleases you, I can fight on the front lines with the troops. I can carry out your orders better than anyone. The men just need…some breaking in.”

He’s silent. She knows he’ll say yes, but Krell never lets her have anything automatically. It’s called ‘fighting for what you want.’ Or whatever he wants to call ‘having a stick up your ass’ that day. 

“You should keep an eye on that Captain Rex. Skywalker spoke of his loyalty, but it’s obvious that it’s loyalty reserved only for him. I will not be surprised if his actions cost us this battle.”

Iona rolls her eyes when she knows he can’t see it. Maybe it’s because she feels bad about their first meeting, but she opens her mouth again against her better judgement. “He could still prove to be useful.” Her irritation is dangerously close to showing itself. Typical Krell, always convinced that it’s him against the rest of the galaxy. “It would be unwise to—”

Krell stops dead in his tracks, and Iona immediately realizes her mistake. “Unwise?” he turns on her and snarls. “Is that so?”

She pales. “No, Master, I-”

“Don’t lecture me about what’s unwise,  _ little girl. _ ” There’s palpable rage in his voice, and she fights the urge to shrink backwards into the shrubbery. “You know  _ nothing _ . You are  _ my apprentice _ . Everything that you know, every victory you have won, every skill that you have, you have because of me. You are the best because I am the best. You are  _ nothing _ without me. But if you feel that you’ve outgrown my mentorship and you’re now fully equipped to expound me on the ins and outs of a war, then you can get out of my sight and find yourself a new master!”

He spits the words in her face like venom, and Maker, do they burn. She knows he’s right and that’s just the worst part, isn’t it? Without Krell, Iona wouldn’t be half of the warrior she is now, just some watered-down version of that little girl from the Outer Rim trying to play it tough. She wouldn’t be the best dueller in her rank. She wouldn’t be this close to becoming a Jedi Knight. She’d be lost, dead, or worse, enslaved. She  _ would _ be nothing without him.

Iona is painfully aware of the troops that have stopped behind them and have heard all of the worst parts of Krell’s outburst. But even as her Master is just inches from her face, staring down and practically foaming at the mouth, she doesn’t flinch. Krell always taught her to always look straight into the enemy’s eyes, no matter how badly you were losing. It’s a sign of bravery. But he must’ve forgotten that his advice also applied in situations where  _ he _ counted as the enemy.

“Forgive me, Master,” she says as calmly as she can. “I misspoke. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re right. It won’t.” He eyes her coldly, the way he would look at a service droid, and it makes her stomach turn. “You want to prove yourself on the battlefield with the troops? Go ahead. See if you can impress me.” Then he turns to look at the Captain, who’s watching them silently. “Was that entertaining enough for you, Captain?”

He stalks away, leaving Iona behind. She can’t see his expression behind the cover of his helmet, but she expects the Captain’s Force signature to be tinged with pity, or even worse, sympathy. But to her surprise, it’s warm with regard.

She levels her gaze with the slits in his helmet until he’s clearing his throat and saying “alright, move out, men,” in his Captain Voice, but his steps falter until she falls in line next to him. He’s almost too easy to figure out.

After all, she did learn from Krell how to read people’s emotions.

___

The General’s plan to take the city is horrible. Rex knows that Commander Orum agrees.

But there’s nothing left to do except follow orders, especially when they’re being verbally whipped across your face and the General refers to you by your clone number. Humiliating, but orders are orders. Besides, he is the General. Maybe Rex just needs a little more faith.

But he can feel the tensions running high within the troops as the platoons make their way down the main route towards the city’s entrance. It’s hard not to let himself feed off of it, but Commander Orum is walking beside him and Rex lets her steady aura of unwavering calm wash over his nerves. 

Secretly, he’s relieved that she’s with them on the front lines. While Krell brings up the rear or is off doing Maker-knows-what, his Padawan might just be the one to keep them alive. He has a feeling that Krell doesn’t care much for the lives of clones.

_ BOOM! _ Suddenly, an explosion shakes the ground and Rex hears two of his brothers cry out as they’re blasted into the air. 

He drops to the ground and roars, “Mines! Nobody move!”

When the dust settles and everything is silent for a moment except for the quiet humming of the scout walkers, Rex straightens and motions for someone to the two unmoving bodies on the ground. He turns to Fives. “Can you sweep ‘em?”

The heat scanners illuminate neon blue patches that litter the road in front of them, and Rex wants to groan out loud. None of this would be a problem if they were doing Anakin’s original plan, not this bogus full-frontal assault, but he doesn’t say it in front of Orum. He gets the feeling that she wants him to say something about it, but he’s still not sure if it’s to have something to accuse him for or reassurance that they’re both on the same page about her master’s terrible strategies.

_ BOOM! _ When the first cannonball hits them from behind, Rex decides that he’s had enough of exploding things for one day. Umbaran soldiers come leaping out of the shadows from all directions, and the air is filled with blue and green blasts. They’re under attack, and completely exposed in the middle of the road.

Rex pulls out his blasters and yells, “Hold your ground!” He doesn’t need another scolding from Krell after he explicitly told him to hold their position along the main route.

He hears the familiar hum of two lightsabers being ignited, and Rex watches as Orum deftly blocks every single blast shot that comes her way. Her two twirling arcs of emerald green are almost hypnotic to watch, arms moving so fast that they’re impossible to track with human eyes. He’ll never get tired of watching Jedi in battle, the absolute lawlessness in the limits their bodies could reach, the sheer power of their one-unit army. 

He has to shake himself out of it and check if he took a blast anywhere in the three whole seconds he was watching her.

He rolls under the Umbaran’s blasts and fires twice, getting two of them in the face. Rex can hear Hardcase a few yards away, going ham on the blaster cannon and screaming illegible threats over gunfire. Fives is close to him, fending off an Umbaran attacker and smashing through his helmet with the butt of his rifle. And through the darkness he can see Orum leaping through the air, holding her sabers horizontally and slicing through enemy lines like they’re made of butter. But Umbarans are coming in from every side, and Rex knows that they’re outnumbered and exposed.

“Look out!” 

He turns to see an Umbaran running straight at him with a blaster pointed at his chest. Before Rex can even react, a green lightsaber blade cuts through the barrel and stabs the Umbaran through the chest.

“Watch your left,” is all Orum says.

_ Stars. _ He’ll thank her later. “We need to pull back,” he says. “Get them to follow us. If we can draw them out, we can see them. If we can see them, we can hit them.” 

She hesitates. “But Krell said to—”

“We’re all going to be slaughtered out here if we don’t get some cover!” He doesn’t blame her misgivings, especially if her scene with Krell earlier is any indicator of their relationship dynamic, but they don’t have much of a choice. When she nods, Rex takes a deep breath and yells, “All squads, pull back NOW!”

Cannon blasts rock the ground as the troops scramble back the way they came, but the Umbarans take the bait. More scout walkers appear in their ranks, and as they hold their position, the enemy begins to flee back into the shadows.

Rex has no time to process what just happened before he hears heavy footsteps approaching. “CT-7567! Do you have a malfunction in your design?” bellows Krell. “You’ve pulled your forces back from taking the capital city! The enemy now has control of this route. This entire operation has been compromised because of your failure!” He punctuates his last few words by jabbing Rex in the chest, but he catches himself before losing his balance.

“Master, we tried holding our position, but we were severely outnumbered and had no cover from the enemy. Captain Rex made the best call—”

“Do not give me excuses, Iona!” he turns on her and shouts before she can come to Rex’s defense. “Your failure has disappointed me the most!”

Iona’s eyes go wide with shame, and blood roars in Rex’s ears. 

“Sir, if I may address your accusation,” he growls. “I followed your orders, even in the face of a plan that, in my opinion, was severely flawed, a plan that costs us men,  _ not clones _ !” He rips off his helmet to stare Krell hard in the eye. “As it is my duty to remain loyal to your command, I also have another duty: to protect those men. And for the record, Commander Orum’s first instinct was to follow your orders. I gave the command. So if you want to blame anyone for a  _ failure _ , you can blame me.”

Shit. He’s surprised at himself for the outburst, but Krell looks even more stunned. His beady yellow eyes flicker between Rex to Iona, then towards the troops standing in silence, then back to Rex. He can practically see the gears turning in the General’s head.  _ Probably trying to decide how he’s going to cook my corpse _ , he thinks.

After a few beats, Krell straightens and actually  _ chuckles _ . “You have a spark of tenacity, Captain. I’ll give you that. I suppose your loyalty to your men is to be commended. That’s important to be an effective commander. They seem to admire this. ” For a moment, his eyes flick back towards Iona. “Alright, Captain Rex, your opinion has been noted. Dismissed.”

It is only when he is completely out of earshot when Rex sighs and lets his shoulders slump. 

“I think he just complimented you,” Fives remarks incredulously.

“Eh, it’s hard to tell,” he replies. He catches Iona’s gaze, who’s stayed silent this whole time. She has a hard, blazing look in her eyes that says everything she doesn’t have to say out loud. She’ll have his back just as he had hers.

“INCOMING!” A cannonball blast comes out of nowhere and blows troopers off the ground. Rex readies his blasters as the regrouped Umbarans launch a second attack. They’re not out of this just yet.

___

A machine. Krell has called Iona that while bragging to other Jedi so many times that it feels like it should be her middle name: a well-oiled machine. And it’s true. Her lightsaber forms are flawless and practically muscle memory. She can recite any piece of Jedi lore like she’s reading it out of a textbook. Days can go by while Iona spends all of her time alone training or reading, that she forgets about her life outside of the Temple. Her friends make jokes, but sometimes she actually worries that one day she’ll forget how to feel things altogether.

But every now and then, Iona gets an unfamiliar, fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach, when she’s hanging around one of the male Padawans close to her age or when Master Kenobi smiles serenely at her in the temple halls. And every time she gets it, she hears a whispering voice in her head that tells her to follow it and see where it takes her. Whatever that even means. But it makes her feel insecure and anxious, which is all the confirmation she needs to know that she hasn’t completely forfeited  _ all _ human emotions. So every time her stomach flutters, she clamps down on it and shoves it away. 

Oddly enough, the voice always sounds vaguely like Krell.

She’s feeling it in her stomach now, as she stands next to Captain Rex on a ridge looking out towards the Umbaran airbase they’re supposed to capture. Annoyed at herself, she blinks hard as Rex starts talking.

“There’s a base there, alright. And it’s heavily guarded.” He zooms in closer with the electrobinoculars. “At least three tank divisions, plus guns.”

“We’ll advance along the central gorge and engage their forces in a full-frontal assault,” says her Master.

Rex crouches down to get a better look at the terrain. “The gorge is narrow, sir. We’ll only be able to move our platoons in single squads. Perhaps a closer recon will tell us if there’s a more secure route.”

Iona sees her master’s eyes narrow, and she already knows his answer. “Obi-Wan and the other battalions are holding off the enemy right now while they wait for us to take out this base. We don’t have time to look for a more secure route.”

Rex turns towards her. “Commander Orum, what say you?”

She doesn’t have to see his eyes in order to sense Rex’s plea for support. It’s another bad plan, too aggressive, too risky. She knows it as well as he does. But when she catches her master’s penetrating stare from over Rex’s head, his words from earlier ring in her ears:  _ your failure has disappointed me the most. _

“My master is right. We’re out of time. The gorge is our best bet.”

She feels like the galaxy’s biggest asshole as Rex stiffens. “Yes, sir.” 

But when he turns away and she sees her master’s smirk of satisfaction at her, she’s selfish enough to feel content with taking the risk.

___

Iona usually loves the battlefield. She loves the adrenaline rush, the feel of her sabers as they slice through droid metal, the challenge of it all. Krell taught her that every battle is a learning experience, and that she should glean as much from it as she could.

What he forgot to teach her was that a battlefield means loss. A battlefield means death. And the fact that she always thinks of it as a lesson first has to say something about the kind of person that she is. So she’s self-absorbed like that.

Iona remembers this flaw in her training as she watches the troops from the top of the ridge, Rex briefing them on the assault tactics. Krell might think differently, but winning the loyalty of the clones is everything to their mission. Now, she can’t help but feel as though this latest order has dragged her two steps backwards from that goal.

She starts when a large alien hand comes to rest on her shoulder. “Troubled, young one?” _Oh fuck you,_ she thinks savagely. She’s back to being ‘young one’ now? Because she took his side over Rex’s?

“No, Master. Just studying the terrain. It’s still a long way to the airbase.” She hates herself for her self-induced reflex of suppressing everything.

Krell nods and scoffs. “Insolent clones. With any luck, they’ll follow orders this time and actually manage to do something right.” When Iona doesn’t respond, he hums to himself and says, “I think it’s time to let the Captain do his duty and handle his own men. You may excuse yourself from this battle.”

“But, Master—”

Krell’s yellow eyes flash dangerously, and she falls silent. “You’ve done enough for them, young one. You will stay here. Not every battle is worth fighting.”

_ Worth fighting to me, or worth fighting to a clone? _ she thinks bitterly. All she says instead is, “Then I will inform the Captain,” and starts down the ridge wall before he can call her back.

When she approaches Rex, he’s watching his men with his back to her, helmet off and tucked under his arm at his side. His silhouette is striking against the fluorescent bulbs of the Umbaran landscape. Her master is right about one thing; he has a spark of tenacity. You can see it in his face.

“Captain,” she greets him with a nod.

He doesn’t even turn his head to acknowledge her. “Commander.” Guilt unsheathes its claws and sinks them hard into her gut. Cold. She deserves that.

“Updates on our progress?”

“We will be ready to move out shortly. Fives and I will lead the first division, and you and Hardcase will take the second.”

“Actually.” There’s no good way to phrase it, now that he’s definitely angry with her. “I won’t be joining the troops. General Krell has ordered me at his side.”

He’s silent for a few beats, but when he speaks, his tone has dropped several degrees. “I see. The  _ General _ ordered you, did he?”

Guilt and irritation mix painfully in her stomach. “What are you insinuating there?”

“Nothing at all. I just know that it must be disappointing to have to sit out on a plan that you were so  _ eager _ to support.”

She narrows her eyes. It’s not just anger anymore, it’s pettiness and she’s honestly a little disappointed in him. “Don’t be passive aggressive, Rex. This isn’t secondary school drama, this is a war. I’m not eager about this plan at all, but it’s our only option—”

“It’s  _ Captain _ Rex,” he cuts her off, turning on her sharply. “And if you disagree with it so much, why don’t you say something to the General?”

She knows she shouldn’t pull rank, but something in her cracks and flares dangerously, and when she opens her mouth, she can practically taste the venom as it drips from her tongue. “Well  _ Captain _ , it’s  _ Commander _ Orum to you. Or do you forget that I outrank you and this is my invasion more than it is yours?”

They stand there, glaring at each other until someone coughs awkwardly next to them.

“Uh, Captain,” Fives scratches the back of his neck. “All divisions are ready to move out.”

“Good. Let’s go.” 

The guilt almost claws itself out of her throat as she watches his retreating back, but she shoves it back down and stalks angrily back to Krell.

___

Rex knew the attack would go south after Iona—sorry, the  _ Commander _ —bailed on them. Then the caterpillar assault tanks showed up. And from their dust rose these  _ kriffing _ cannons, and he hates that the galaxy keeps proving him right.

But all he can do for the moment is hold his ground and wait for Fives and Hardcase to finally show up with the starfighters. He can barely hear his commlink beep over the gunfire and explosions, but Krell’s unmistakable rumble rises above the sounds of chaos.

“CT-7567, where are you?!”

Shit. Apparently, his name to Krell changes with the tide of the battle. When he gives him a win, he’s respectable enough to be Rex. When he’s waist-deep in banthashit, he’s just another number. His holoprojector lights up with the grainy silhouettes of Krell and Iona, and he braces himself to deliver the point of disapproval of the hour. 

“General Krell, we’ve come up with a plan to infiltrate the air base. I’ve dispatched two men on a stealth incursion into the airbase. They’ve been ordered to co-opt starfighters.” Rex isn’t sure if the hologram is just really shitty, but he swears he can see Iona smile.

“You WHAT?!” Rex flinches. Good thing he already sent them off. “You put this entire assault on your hope that two clones can do what your entire group could not?!”

“Sir, the rocket launchers don’t work on these tanks, and it’ll be easier to slip by undetected while the rest of us keep the tanks occupied.”  _ Please, for just this once, be a little open minded,  _ he silently pleads.

“Captain! You will launch a full-forward strike immediately! Or you will be relieved of duty!”

So much for open-minded. 

He locks eyes with Iona just as the hologram flickers out. Rex would feel a  _ lot _ better if she and her lightsabers were here, cutting up some tanks and helping out. But she’s not, she’s up  _ there _ in  _ safety  _ with the  _ General _ , so they make do with what they have and fulfill their duties as expendable soldiers of the Republic. What a way to go out. 

He stands up, swallows his nerves, and says to the troopers next to him, “We just need to hold out as long as we can. Fives and Hardcase will pull this thing off.”

But the longer they’re on the battlefield, the less Rex starts to believe it. There’s not much they can do to slow the tanks down, and they’re about to be overrun. Rex searches the skies for any incoming starfighters, the smallest green bubble flying towards their area, but nothing comes. The image of the two troopers sitting in prison cells, or worse, shot dead, keeps floating to the front of his mind. But Rex pushes it away, aims his rocket launcher at the eye of one of the tanks, and fires.

It’s solid, striking the eye in its center, but its ray shields hold up. In fact, it only seems to make the Umbaran pilot angrier, and the tanks begin to advance even more quickly towards them than before.

Rex sees clones dive out of its way as its legs stomp hard on the ground. Some of them get lucky and manage to evade the metal columns. Others don’t. He feels bile rising in his throat as fresh screams join the discourse of the battle. 

“Where  _ are _ those two?!” he shouts for no one to hear.

One of the tanks scrambles wildly towards Rex on its massive legs, who warms up another shot and fires again. It explodes against the cannon’s armor, but with no avail. The tank bears down on him, so close that he can hear the Umbaran pilot screaming orders from inside. One of its gigantic legs casts a shadow over Rex as it lifts over his head, and he squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for his body to be crushed along with his brothers.

But it doesn’t come.

He opens his eyes to see a dark figure standing over him, arms outstretched, holding up the tank’s leg all on their own. Well, not exactly holding it up…

Iona has her heels dug deep into the earth as she uses the Force to keep the enormous piece of metal levitated above their heads. Rex can still hear the Umbaran pilot, screaming what he can only assume are insanely filthy profanities at the Jedi, beating his fists against the ray shield. With a shock, he realizes that she’s not only holding up its leg, but has the entire tank frozen in place. Clones are scrambling out from underneath its belly while Iona grunts under the weight, her biceps trembling from the strain. Then, when all clones are clear from the path of destruction, with a final burst of effort she topples the tank onto its side. It lands with a crash that shakes the forest floor.

She’s panting from the effort, but offers him her hand and helps pull him to his feet. “Are you alright, Captain?”

“I…” She’s asking him if  _ he’s _ alright? “Yeah, I’m okay. Are  _ you _ ?”

She nods, wiping at the beads with sweat that glisten on her nose under slivers of Umbaran moonlight. “Fine. It was just...very heavy.”

“I’ll say.” He stands there as she catches her breath, processing everything that just happened, unsure of what to say next. “...thank you, Commander.”

She straightens and meets his eyes. Electric blue. “You would do the same for me.”

It’s an apology of sorts, he realizes. The one time she should have stood by him, and the one time that she did. Before Rex can respond, he hears a swooping sound in the air above them. Two Umbaran starfighters appear over the horizon as Fives’ voice comes in through his comlink. “Clear out, Captain!”

“The big guns have arrived!” cheers Hardcase.

“Move!” They both turn and sprint for shelter between the trees as Fives and Hardcase fire on the enemy tanks. Blasts rain down and the tanks explode into green and orange fire that fills the air with the smell of ozone. Rex can feel the scorching heat on his back armor when the explosion blows the two of them forward and face first into a ditch.

“Whoooo hoo!” Around them, Rex hears the troopers begin to cheer and fire their blasters in the air.

“They really did it,” he grins, picking himself off of the forest floor and watching the enemy burn in green and orange above them. It’s truly the most beautiful view you can get out here.

“Only because of  _ your _ plan,” Iona says matter-of-factly, picking a few twigs out of her ponytail. Even with dirt smudged on her face and half a tree stuck in her hair, she’s damn pretty and she’s  _ glowing _ at him. “A stealth incursion. Very Anakin Skywalker.” She’s impressed with him, and he wants to puff out his chest and let it go to his head a little bit, but they’re still in a warzone and Rex isn’t the prideful type.

“I was only doing my job, Commander.” When she hums in appreciation and turns back to look at the circling starfighters above them, Rex remembers something. “Speaking of jobs, wasn’t  _ yours _ supposed to be staying up there with the General?”

She chuckles, a little nervously. “Well, yes. But I wasn’t going to leave my troops out there alone.”

_ Her _ troops. 

“Thank you, Commander.”

“You already thanked me,” she points out and shakes her head, letting a few more leaves drop out of her hair. “Also, from now on, it’s Iona.” She smiles at him, the same one he saw her give him in the hologram. “Just Iona.”

He likes it when she smiles at him. “Then I’m Rex,” he grins back. “Just Rex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of "In Undertow!" Quarantine finally got me to write this fic and I hope I don't abandon it this time. My rough estimate is about 10-15 chapters in total, maybe more maybe less, we're literally figuring it out with every chapter. The Umbara arc will be the first three chapters and then after that it'll turn into my own monster :) Meanwhile, feel free to tell me your thoughts and bug me about updates on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/glimmiks)!


	2. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two babies bond. Banthashit hits the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I had this written when I posted chapter one, then I went back to edit and realized that it sucked so I rewrote it three times. Ha. Anyways.

One thing that everyone knows about Pong Krell is that he is  _ always _ angry. 

She can sense it festering in him at any given moment: simmering, volatile, like a bomb frozen one second before the end of its countdown. When he doesn’t get his way, he screams. When he’s tired, he snaps. Even when everything is going smoothly and there’s nothing to be angry about, he always finds  _ something _ . It frightens her more than she cares to admit.

And right now, like usual, the subject of his anger is Iona.

“I’m tired of this pushback from you!” She tries not to flinch when droplets of his spittle land across her face, acidic and boiling. “Ever since we came to this planet, you have been disobedient and irrational and senseless, and I will not stand for it anymore. You forget your place. You are  _ my  _ apprentice, you listen to  _ my _ orders-”

“Not when you-”

“- and do  _ not _ interrupt me while I’m talking!” He slams his fist against the holomap, making the table rattle and the images flicker unsteadily. Iona snaps her jaw shut, but stares back at him in quiet contempt and resists the urge to roll her eyes. “You see? This behavior isn’t like you! I thought I taught you respect.”

“This isn’t about respect. This is about doing what’s right.”

“And you don’t think that  _ I _ know what’s right?!” Pong’s hubris had always been his fatal flaw. “Who leads this campaign? Who is  _ your _ Master?”

She ignores him. “Maybe there isn’t one version of what’s right.” Iona doesn’t know where all of this newfound courage is coming from. It bursts from her lips like water tumbling over rocks, tripping over their own feet, coming down fast and dangerous. “There must be a- a middle ground. A compromise. You cannot underestimate the captain’s-”

Krell laughs derisively. “The captain and his plan for the starfighters is unrefined and foolish. There is nothing he knows that can help us.”

“Maybe he knows more about his  _ own  _ troops than you pretend to!”

“They’re clones, not pilots! It’s not in their training! What else is there to know?” Iona frowns. It’s a stupid excuse, one that suspiciously feels like a cover.

“Then  _ I’ll  _ be a pilot,” she counters stubbornly. Her Jedi training had been more than comprehensive. If she can outfly squadrons of Separatist gunships, she can learn one stupid starfighter.

Her master doesn’t agree. His expression darkens. “You are  _ not _ flying one of those starfighters. You’d crash.” 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He growls low in his throat, a warning. “Iona, enough. I forbid it. We are not using the starfighters, and I will not let you risk your life to attempt a fool’s errand!”

“Men will die if we don’t try!”

“Then let them!” he explodes, throwing his hands in the air. “They’re  _ clones _ . They are meant to die for us, that is their purpose! We’re fighting a  _ war _ , for Maker’s sake, are you really so naïve?”

There’s a painfully heavy silence that follows those words. He’s sick, Iona realizes in horror. He’s sick in the head, and for the first time in her life, she’s ashamed of her master.

“Forgive me,” she says, voice icy, “if you find my concern for human lives to be  _ naïve. _ ”

Krell opens his mouth again, but a throat clears itself from the entrance to the command center and both of their heads immediately whip around towards the source.

Captain Rex stands awkwardly by the lift, eyes darting between his two superior officers, looking like a deer caught in speeder headlights.  _ Sithspit. _ He heard them. She doesn’t need the Force to confirm it, it’s practically written all over his face. 

“Um. Sir. Something’s… exploded in hangar 9-4.”

“Exploded,” Krell repeats, eyes narrowed, like his reaction time has been delayed a good three seconds.

Rex just nods and gestures towards the window overlooking the airbase quad. The doors on one of the nearby hangars has, quite literally, exploded. The remains of the blast are still spitting fire and smoke, and the whole building looks on the verge of collapse. 

“I’m going down there,” her master grunts after a few moments, striding quickly towards the lift.

Once he’s out of earshot, Iona eyes Rex nervously. “How much did you hear?”

He grimaces. “Enough.”

_ Everything _ , his presence in the Force tells her. Horror and panic have knotted themselves around his chest and tighten their grip by the second. The air between them is tinged with blue and something that feels oddly like shame. 

She wants to reach out and dispel all of it, crush it in her fist and apologize for everything he heard, but what was there to say? What could he possibly want to hear? Iona had never been any good at the compassion aspect of being a Jedi. She doubts anything she could say would make it better.

So Iona says nothing, just averts her eyes and gestures in the direction her master went. They follow him down the lift and across the courtyard to the damaged hangar, where it looks like it was hit by a wind storm, then subsequently a proton bomb. The hangar doors are completely blown off, a charred hole in the side of the structure. Starfighters that were hung from the ceiling had been disconnected from their cables and now lay on their sides in disarray across the floor. 

The trio approaches Fives and Hardcase, who are standing beside the only starfighter parked upright in the entire hangar and seem to be in the middle of an argument.

Really,  _ what _ had they been doing?

“Explain this.  _ Now. _ ” Krell’s growl catches the two of them by surprise.

“Uh, sir.” Hardcase stands at attention but has blanched considerably. “We were...decrypting the enemy craft when what appears to be an...enemy booby trap went off. The fighter went haywire, and had I not been able to get control of it and aim the missile at the doors, something...something worse might’ve happened.” 

“Is this true?” The General rounds on Fives, who stands off to the side looking as though he’s regretting every decision that brought him to this moment.

“Ah...yes, sir. That is...what happened. No doubt.” The ARC’s eyes flick over to Rex, who is shielded from Iona by Krell, but she can imagine his expression of pure irritation.

“Well, Iona, Captain Rex.” Her master turns to them, looking annoyingly pleased with himself. “Looks like I was correct. The Umbaran fighters are dangerous and not fit for flight.” He bares his teeth in a grin of satisfaction, almost challenging her.

“But, sir- !”

“Lock down these fighters,” Krell ignores the clone and is already walking out of the hangar. “I don’t want anything else exploding.”

Rex glares at his men as though he just might.

“Captain, conduct a perimeter sweep of the airbase. We must keep the Umbarans at bay.” Krell starts back towards the command center and Iona moves to follow him. But he seems to remember her presence at the last moment, stopping short and coldly adding, “Commander Orum will join you.”

She can’t muster the acidity to snipe, “Yes, Master” as he walks away. This is his version of teaching her humiliation: work that goes below her rank. She should be angry, a little indignancy, at the least. But Iona is suddenly hit with overwhelming exhaustion, a plunge into cold water that engulfs her whole body, and she’s too  _ tired  _ to put up a fight this time.

“Looks like he’s handing me off to you now.” She tries for unbothered, but Iona can hear a strange hardness that creeps into her tone, like concrete being poured over a fissure. 

Rex tilts his head at her, his face masked by his helmet. Sometimes Iona isn’t entirely sure as to what he thinks about her. She’s spent as much time pulling him out of harm’s way as he’s spent watching her get picked apart by her own Master, which probably puts him somewhere between gratefulness and considering referring her to a therapist. 

But Iona doesn’t care if he thinks he owes her his life, or if he thinks her relationship with Pong is epitome of dysfunctional. She just doesn’t want his pity.

When he speaks, he sounds surprisingly casual. “Well technically, you outrank me,” Rex shrugs mildly. “So I guess I’m the one being handed off to you.”

It’s ironic, really. The last time they brought up rank, that conversation ended with both of them storming off in different directions, and it took a near-death experience to clear that one up. But now, as Rex is extending it, it’s a means of helping her reclaim a shred of her authority. Full circle amends.

Gratitude swells in her and Iona blinks, desperately trying to keep a stupid smile off of her face, and says, “Well, then I say we’d better get on that perimeter sweep.”

Rex raises two fingers to his head in a salute. “Yes, sir.”

___

“Okay, okay, I just remembered this one. Commander Tano and I went to steal General Skywalker’s clothes while he was in the fresher, and instead we got  _ this _ -”

Rex opens a video file on his datapad and holds it out for Iona to watch. It’s a terribly taken video—the shower was loud, the signal on the  _ Resolute _ had been shoddy all day, and Ahsoka couldn’t hold the camera steady for shit—but he watches Iona’s mouth falls open as she turns up the volume to hear General Skywalker’s unmistakable voice singing,  _ “Baby, not a thousand stars could keep us apart, I’d fall right back into your arms…” _

“Turns out General Skywalker is a secret fan of Aurelia V,” he smirks. “And he’s still doing us favors to make sure that that video doesn’t make its way through the 501st.”

She laughs incredulously. “You are  _ not _ using that to blackmail a Jedi.”

“I am, and it’s working. The man can use a lightsaber, but he can’t sing in key for shit.”

Iona chuckles again and leans down to hand it back to him. Their “perimeter sweep” has been  _ very _ productive so far; Rex let the patrol squad do their thing while he and Iona stroll on a path close to the airbase wall and he looks for more embarrassing material on his vod and his Jedi. Without the General looming over her shoulder, she seems to be in considerably higher spirits.

It’s mainly about a distraction at this point. Rex saw the way her face fell after Krell dismissed her, how her shoulders slumped and she seemed to age right before his eyes, and a voice in his head immediately said  _ nope _ and began looking for anything that might make her laugh.

It’s stupid. A good portion of these videos are just Fives and Hardcase shotgunning cans of photon fizzle in the barracks with the entire 501st chanting,  _ chug, chug, chug, _ while Cody looks on, evidently disappointed. There’s quite a few unflattering selfies of Ahsoka, eyes crossed and cheeks puffed, her go-to ugly face when she spams his camera just to annoy him. She probably thinks that Rex deletes them, but he doesn’t. Keeps them so he can pass them onto Skywalker when Ahsoka makes the Council one day, and he can embarrass her for Rex when he’s not around.

He’s never shown anyone these things, simply because most of the people he’d share them with are in the pictures themselves, or they were holding the camera. But he shows Iona, because she needs the laugh and he thinks she’ll appreciate the domesticity of it all, and because she  _ likes _ them. 

Rex glances up at her as Iona, still carefully balancing along the ridge of a large Umbaran tree root, launches into a story about the time she and her friends snuck into an Aurelia concert on Coruscant. He’s only half listening, only vaguely aware of another explosion going off in the distance near the capital, suddenly becoming hyper aware of the excited movement in her hands and the far-off gleam in her eyes...

He’s staring, Rex realizes with a start, and quickly busies himself with the datapad, tapping on a random file before she can notice. 

He opens an old photograph, taken about a year earlier. Fives and Echo, newly minted ARC troopers, stand with him and Cody in front of a Republic transport. The grins that split the twin’s faces and the shine of their ARC armor suggests it was taken right after the Raid on Kamino, though Rex can’t recall the exact moment.

It cracks open something inside of him, seeing the two of them still together. 

Iona notices that he’s slowed his walk, and peers at the photo from over his shoulder. “You and Fives, right?” She points at them, and he’s a little surprised that she’s so quick to recognize Fives without his tattoo visible. “Who are the others?”

“Cody, commander of the 212th.” He gestures to Cody and his distinctive yellow accented armor beside the other three in blue. “And that’s Echo.”

“Used to be 501st?” The gentleness in her voice implies what she already knows.

Rex nods. “An ARC. Promoted with Fives. They were twins,” he adds, though she probably doesn’t know the gravity of the meaning. “Developed in the same growth tube on Kamino. All clones are brothers to each other, but Fives and Echo…”

“Were bonded.” Iona finishes his sentence when words fail him.

He nods mutely again, and shuts off the datapad. Fives was never the same after the Citadel. She would never understand. Neither would Rex, at least not completely, but he could try, better than any nat-born.

“We’re all bonded, in ways a lot of people don’t understand.” Krell’s words in the command center come back to him, and his fingers tighten around the datapad. “Clones might be expendable to the Jedi, but we’re not to each other.”

The air between them is silent. For a moment he worries that he may have overstepped, implied something that he didn’t mean to imply, but then a small hand comes to rest on his pauldron, and Rex stiffens underneath the slight weight of it. 

“I’m sorry,” Iona says, her voice a self-conscious hush. “About earlier. You shouldn’t have had to hear that from him-”

“No.” Rex stows the datapad away, then turns to face her. He will not let her pity him. That isn’t how he wants her to see him. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad I heard.” When an expression of surprise flits across her face, he adds, “It’s good to know that at least one of our commanding officers gives half a shit.”

Iona glances at her feet and smiles modestly. But Rex notices an odd tightness to her mouth and jaw, and the way her hand snakes up the side of her neck to tug nervously at the Padawan braid woven behind her right ear, and he wonders once again if it was something he said. “Sir?”

“Hmm?” Iona’s head snaps back up to attention, like coming out of a daydream. “Sorry. I was just… thinking. I wonder...” She winds the braid mindlessly around her finger, clearly struggling to find the appropriate words. “Your…impression of my Master,” she begins slowly, stepping off of the root and onto level ground with him. “Is that shared amongst the troops?”

This is dangerous territory. She knows it as well as he does, but that didn’t stop her from asking, did it? 

“With all due respect, Commander-”

“Iona,” she corrects him.

Force of habit had almost made him forget that they were supposed to be on a first name basis. “Iona,” he repeats. The three syllables drip sweetly from his tongue, and he’s unable to keep the corners of his mouth from rising. 

He clears his throat. “With all due respect, I don’t think I should speak for my-”

“I won’t say anything,” she says quickly. “I wouldn’t tell him.” 

_ Trust me _ , is the hidden plea there. And isn’t it that simple? Two people of their kind have to trust each other, have to keep a little faith, because it could mean life or death out here. And Rex  _ does _ trust her. He should show her that much.

When she sees him hesitate, Iona holds both of her palms up in surrender. “We’ve dropped ranks, haven’t we? Completely off the record. So you can think of this as just a conversation between friends.”

_ Friends _ . Rex swallows a lump in his throat and is grateful that he has his helmet on so she can’t see him blush. He makes a split second decision with his gut, and decides to just run with it.

“If it stays between friends,” Rex begins, “then yes. Most of my men feel the same.”

Iona’s face remains impassive at his confession, as if it doesn’t surprise her. “I see. Can’t say that I blame any of you.”

“With all due respect, I believe that General Krell is a highly effective leader,” Rex says quickly. “It’s just that, his methods reflect how little he cares about his men.”

“Cares?” Iona scoffs, her expression morphing into something biting and bitter. “You misjudge him. My master doesn’t  _ care _ about clones. He doesn’t care about any of you.”

That confession sinks straight down into his bones, like ice. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says, kicking at a patch of grass half hidden under a tree root, “that he doesn’t see you as real life forms. Doesn’t think it’s real blood being spilled.”

Rex knows that. After hearing what he heard from Krell today, it’s the only conclusion he could draw. But when she says it out loud, it somehow makes the horror sink in that much deeper.

“So he’s perfectly content with killing as many men as necessary to win.”

“Yes.” She’s as blunt as ever.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Iona shrugs tiredly, and once again, it’s like she’s aging right before his eyes. “I thought you should know what you’re dealing with. For the safety of your men.”

_ Or to gain your trust before she sends you into another bloodbath, _ a cruel little voice in his head whispers, but Rex pushes that thought aside as fast as it surfaces. That’s not fair. Not after everything she’s done...

“And you?”

Iona looks up. “What about me?”

“Do  _ you _ think it’s real blood being spilled?”

She stares at him as if no one’s ever asked her that question before, or as if she can’t believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. “Of  _ course _ I do.” She might even look a little offended.

“I’m sorry” he says quickly. “I know that. I didn’t mean-”

But Iona holds up a hand to silence him, her expression fading, replaced with sympathy. “That’s alright. I understand.”

She doesn’t say anything else, the air between them suddenly thick with something that is neither comfortable yet uncomfortable. 

“I’m sorry about your plan with the starfighters,” she says softly after a few beats. “I’ll try to talk to him again before we start our invasion of the capital. Maybe I can…” She trails off, but Rex doesn’t feel too hopeful about her chances. Plus, after what Fives told him and the incident in the hangar, she might not even have to…

It goes against his better judgement, but the question tumbles out before Rex has a chance to thoroughly think it through. “If I tell you something, can you promise it stays between us? As friends?”

She regards him quietly. Everything about Iona glows under this light; the bioluminescent trees cast ethereal, violet-tinged beams across her features. Her skin looks impossibly smooth, as though carved out of white ivory, and he can count the individual diamonds that sweep across her cheekbones.

For a split second, Rex freezes.

“I promise,” Iona says, but it’s reluctant, like she already knows that she won’t like what he’s about to tell her. 

Rex nods and swallows. He’s been ignoring the knot of anxiety building in his stomach since Fives more or less confirmed that he would be disobeying direct orders. He recounts as much of their conversation as he can to Iona, lets her draw her own conclusions about what  _ really _ happened in the hangar earlier, lets his concern for his men run wild. He doesn’t know exactly what he wants to hear from her, but it feels good to let it off of his chest. All the while, Iona listens and Rex tries to unsuccessfully gauge her reaction. It’s like trying to track the moves of a durasteel wall.

“I can’t just let him go through with it,” he says with uncertainty. “Not when he’s going to be court martialed. Right?”

Iona purses her lips and her Padawan braid finds its way around her forefinger once again. “It’s his choice. Sounds like he’s aware of the consequences.”

“But if I can stop him—”

“How do you know that stopping him is the right decision?”

She’s gazing at him intently, almost like she’s studying him. Like  _ she’s _ trying to gauge a reaction from  _ him _ . “What do you mean?”

Iona jabs a finger in the direction of the capital, just as another missile explodes and rocks the earth. Scarily timed. “You and I both know that destroying that supply ship gives us the best chance at taking this planet. Fives knows that, too. And if he’s the only one in this entire legion with enough gall to actually go through with it, then isn’t that the right thing?”

“Not if he’s punished for it.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “Stop thinking like  _ their _ captain, and think like  _ a _ captain.” Which just sounds like code for,  _ get your priorities straight and your head out of your ass. _ “What’s our alternative here? We march on the capital and lose half of our troops?” 

She’s right, of course. Iona can see these things from a bird’s eye, whereas Rex is on the ground, smothered by too many incoming elements at once. He wants to obey orders, shield Fives, and win this battle, but it’s hard to remember that, during a war, you can’t always get what you want.

Iona visibly softens at his pensive silence, unfolding her arms to place a hand against his arm. “Fives is disobeying direct orders from the General to do what he knows is right for the rest of the troops. Not what’s easiest, not what was ordered. What is  _ right _ . And whatever Krell decides for him, that is immensely honorable.” 

Rex just nods, his mouth suddenly dry. She’s standing so impossibly close now, close enough that he can’t help but notice a faint sheen of sweat across her nose. Her eyes bear blue electricity into his, he catches a bit of perfume still lingering on her neck, her hand burns through the armor on his upper arm, and for one, blazing moment, he wishes that he could feel her touch on his skin—

—and then she’s tensing, her hand leaving his arm and flying to her lightsaber, turning sharply to look behind them on the path they had been walking on. “Someone’s coming.”

Rex’s hand flies to his blaster before he sees three clones emerging from the shadowy fog, the one in the middle sporting the clearly distinguishable markings of an ARC on his armor. 

“Fives? What’re you doing here? You should be in the barracks.”

Fives clears his throat loudly and moves his helmet ever-so-subtly in Iona’s direction. “Captain, can I, uh, speak with you privately, sir?”

“Sure. Sorry, Commander.”

“That’s alright. I’ll just… be over there, then.” Iona arches an eyebrow at him pointedly, but walks a little ways ahead of them and pretends to fascinate herself with a bush.

When she’s out of earshot, Fives yanks his helmet off of his shoulders to glare at Rex. “What, so you’re cozy with the commander now?”

Rex takes off his own helmet and sighs. “Don’t be stupid. She’s my commanding officer and we’re friends."

“Oh, right. Because nothing says ‘friend zone’ like a midnight stroll through the moonlight.”

He hopes they don’t notice that he’s blushing in their HUDs. “We’re doing a perimeter sweep!”

“Yeah, you looked  _ really _ busy!” Fives fumes, and there’s an arguing point that Rex can’t refute.

“I’m not having this discussion with you right now,” he responds shortly, and Fives begrudgingly falls in line at the sound of his Captain Voice. “But I guess you’re here to tell me that you’re going through with the plan?”

“Hardcase and Jesse volunteered to be my pilots.” He jerks his head to motion to the other two. “We’re going. And I don’t want you to convince us to stay, because we won’t, and we just came to know if you were going to try and stop us-”

“I’m not going to stop you,” Rex interrupts. “And I won’t ask you to stay, either.”

The three of them share a look. “You won’t?”

“No. On the record, I knew nothing about this. But off the record,” Rex lets himself smile, “I’m fully behind you. And I’ll do my best to convince Krell about a court martial when you get back.”

Fives’ face lights up in a vision of gratitude, as if he’s already forgotten about the beginning of their conversation. “Thank you, sir. This’ll work. You’ll see.”

“I hope it does,” Rex mutters as they leave to walk back to the airbase. “For all of our sakes.”

“They’re doing it, then?” Iona suddenly appears at his elbow, making him start.

“Yeah. It’s out of our hands now.”

“May the Force be with them,” she murmurs, almost low enough for Rex to miss.

_ May the Force be with them, _ Rex repeats silently to himself. It probably doesn’t mean anything, coming from him. He’s no Jedi. 

But he always did appreciate that sentiment.

___

So, they actually manage to blow up the supply ship. The troops could see the explosion even through the thick fog, lighting up the sky in muted yellows and purples. They cheered and fired their blasters into the air, whooping the names of their brothers, and when Iona caught Rex’s beaming eye from across the room, she felt like cheering out loud, too.

But they lose Hardcase in the explosion, and if that already isn’t bad news, Pong skips the court martial completely and sentences Jesse and Fives to an immediate execution.

As she watches the execution squad gather in the courtyard from the tower, Iona can barely contain herself.

“I can sense your anger,” Pong muses. She can feel his eyes on her back, burning holes in her scalp, taunting her. “I’ve never seen this from you, young one. It’s _ raging _ within you.”

“Is it?” She doesn’t even try to hold back the contempt in her voice. “I thought I was being  _ so  _ discrete.”

He sighs, and she hears his footsteps pad towards her until he’s right behind her. She hides a wince as his hand comes to rest on her shoulder. “Do not hold back your emotions, Iona. Take your anger and relish in it. It gives you power.”

She clenches and unclenches her fists in a steady pulse, as if the movements could soothe over the trembling muscles in her hands. “But the code tells us  _ not _ to draw power from our emotions.” 

The tiny figures of Rex and Dogma escort two men stripped to the upper half of their blacks—Fives and Jesse—to stand in front of the execution squad. 

Iona’s throat constricts as she feels bile crawl up her esophagus. She can’t watch. It’s too horrible.

“You have advanced far beyond anything that the Order could ever teach you.” He says this to her often. It used to be a piece of praise that she so longingly wished to hear, but in this moment, it fills her with uncertainty. “Do you not feel how your anger gives you strength? The potential for power that it holds? The Force is growing stronger in you, don’t hold back-”

“You’re about to have two soldiers executed for no good reason, and you’re turning this into a  _ lesson _ ?” Iona turns on Krell and  _ snarls,  _ so furious her voice cracks. All of her frustration at him that’s been twisted into a ball and shoved behind her gut suddenly explodes, and she feels the Force shift around her. Every word that she hurls at him is edged in red. “First they’re your  _ human shields _ and now they’re a part of your  _ sick, fucked up _ lesson on my anger, because they’re not  _ real men _ worth giving a damn over to you, and they never will be! I didn’t think you were insane before, but I believe it now, you absolute sadist son of a—” 

She stops, and her stomach coils around itself when she realizes that he’s  _ smiling _ at her. His lips are twisted into a menacing, satisfied grin, watching her unravel in front of him. 

“That’s good,” he rumbles, never taking his eyes off of her. “That was  _ very _ good.”

She doesn’t want the praise. She’s never wanted him to  _ take back _ a compliment before, but the strange glint in his eye makes the hairs on the back of her neck raise up and her blood run cold all the way down to her fingertips.

_ Deep breaths.  _ She takes steady breaths until the buzzing in her ears has died down and her hands stop shaking. “Just stop.” Her voice is calm again, and Iona desperately tries to ignore the look of disappointment that flashes across Pong’s face.

When she finds it in herself to look back down at the courtyard, relief floods her chest, and a smile spreads across her face. Fives and Jesse are still upright, still alive. Guns are on the floor and the execution squad is stepping back. They’re okay, for now.

“What?” demands Krell, rushing to the window to look for himself.

“Looks like they saw through you, too,” Iona shrugs.

It’s deathly quiet for a few moments, as if every molecule in the room waits with bated breath for Krell’s next move. The silence before the kill. 

“Get me Captain Rex. Now.”

But he doesn’t get to inflict any more punishments. Krell receives a transmission from General Kenobi’s forces, with a report that Umbaran soldiers have gotten a hold of their weapons and armor, and are headed towards the airbase for another strike. He dispatches Rex and the other platoons to intercept them before they can blink, before he has time to change his mind and kill the captain where he stands.

But her master keeps Iona from the battlefield—not that it surprises her. She hasn’t exactly been compliant with some of his recent orders. She also suspects that it’s supposed to be a form of punishment, keeping her confined in the vicinity when he knows that she’d rather be anywhere else than with him. 

So he wants her on a tighter leash. Fine. She’ll pull on that leash as hard as it’ll give.

She can’t spend another minute in that tower with him, so Iona finds an empty storage room to meditate. After a few minutes she can sense a clone posted outside the door, (a Krell-ordered babysitter, no doubt) and that  _ really _ throws off her concentration.

She’d rather be out there with the men. Partially to keep an eye out for Rex, knowing his tendency to flirt with near-death experiences, partially to feel as though she still has some control over the fates of their troops, and partially just to have something to do. Pong may be content with keeping himself squirrelled away while other men fought his battles, but Iona isn’t.

She won’t lose the 501st. Not the way she lost the others.

When she meditates, Iona tries to focus on her anger. It’s still balled up tight like a fist in her stomach, waiting for something to punch or a good reason to unravel itself. She hasn’t felt this out of control with her own emotions for so long, and it terrifies her. Pong had seen to it personally that she was taught a firm grasp on her various turmoils. But what he said in the tower… how he  _ wanted _ her to lose control…

The coppery taste of blood fills her mouth as she accidentally nips her inner lip while deep in concentration. Trying to decipher her master’s intended meanings was always biting off more than she could chew. It was like receiving two contradicting messages from the same source. System overload.

Iona directs her breathing to her core, where it feels most knotted and turbulent. Usually, a good hour or two of meditating would clear her mind right up. But the longer she sits there, the most restless she becomes, until she’s yelling in frustration and unconsciously hurling a wooden crate across the room. It splinters against the wall with a resounding  _ crack! _

Force, she’s never been this tense. She can’t shake Pong’s voice in her head, telling her to release everything on him, and that  _ smile _ . Even after years of being his apprentice, she just can’t understand him. Some days he’s a picture-perfect General of the Republic, and the next he’s telling her to  _ listen to her anger _ and do everything the Jedi have taught her not to do her whole life.

It just doesn’t sit right with her.

Her meditation attempt is interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. The clone posted outside of the door yells something that she can’t quite make out, and runs away from his post. Iona scrambles to her feet. She hears pained screams and unmistakable blaster fire, and something in the Force mutates so quickly that it knocks her backward.

_ The Umbarans are attacking, _ she thinks sluggishly, one hand gripping her head while the other searches for the curved hilt of her lightsaber at her hip.  _ They need my help. _

Iona stands, shaking off the dull throb in her skull, ignoring the chill in her spine, igniting both of her sabers and charging towards the action.

But she doesn’t expect what she finds.

The scene in front of her moves sharply and disorientingly, like fragments of a damaged hologram, memories of a trauma rather forgotten: clones forming ranks to fire at a huge, hulking figure that barrels towards them, holding four green and blue blades that he uses to cut a path through the troops. 

_ His _ troops.

Iona stands, rooted in shock and horror, and she watches her master impale two more clones on his blade to make a beeline for the dark forest.

A noise strangles itself from her throat, somewhere between ‘stop’ and a scream and Pong’s name; it doesn’t even sound like her own voice.

But it gets their attention. In a blinding instant, Iona is surrounded by ten, twenty scopes that flash streaks of white across her vision, and rough, screaming voices that tell her to drop her lightsabers. She does, feeling their familiar weight drop from her palms. But the noise doesn’t stop.

Everything is moving too fast, too violently. She can’t wrap her head around any of it before something else changes. Gloved hands bear down upon her shoulders, forcing her onto her knees and slamming her joints onto dusty asphalt, so hard that she whimpers. 

“Master- ”

And then Iona is staring down the barrel of a blaster: a ring of blue, falling through open air, and everything after is darkness.

___

His stomach is full of stones and he has no way to spit them out.

Rex stands over the durasteel sink on shaky limbs, propped up on his forearms over the basin, and stares hard at himself in the mirror. The tap is still running but his hands make no move to turn off the faucet. Instead, he runs them under the freezing water, bringing them up to push the pads of his fingers into his eyelids, and takes a rattling breath.

How did they even end up here?

They had dragged the stunned general back to the airbase by his six limbs, Rex’s calves and shoulders aching by the time they had secured him in a cell next to Dogma. And then he had shifted his gaze to the next cell over, where a much smaller figure was spread across the floor. Iona lay facing him, one arm draped over her sternum and the other stretched in his direction, looking as peaceful as though she were asleep

It had hit him all at once; Rex left Fives in charge of the brig and excused himself to the nearest fresher, where he has now been standing for the past half an hour. He draws another breath, still tremorous but a little steadier, trying to collect his wits before being thrust back into his duties as a captain. 

The Kaminoans didn’t train him for this. Rex was trained to follow orders—a  _ Jedi’s _ orders. He finds himself wishing for Iona’s counsel, her level head and unwavering calm, advice like the words she had given him just hours prior. But she’s on the other side of this equation now, stunned and lying in a prison cell, and Rex is alone in this.

“Kriffin’ hells,” he mutters.

_ What would General Skywalker do? _ he finds himself thinking. He can practically see him in his mind’s eye, arms crossed languidly and a presumptuous glint in his eye, telling Rex not to let his personal feelings compromise the mission. Always the opposite practitioner of what he preaches.

Another run of cold water over his face and he forces himself to snap to. Rex turns off the faucet and pushes himself off of the sink, letting the refresher door open and close behind him with a soft automated  _ whoosh _ .

He slowly, reluctantly, makes his way back to the brig, where Fives and Jesse are bowed together, whispering conspiratorially. When they hear Rex approaching, they snap to attention.

“Captain. Commander Orum…” Fives doesn’t finish his sentence, just gestures to her.

He turns to look at her wearily.

Iona sits upright, her back to them, cuffed wrists resting across her crossed legs in a clear stance of meditation. Her hair is unpinned from the crown of her head, tumbling past her shoulders and down to the small of her back. While the silence amongst the troopers is injected with uncertainty and darkness, Iona’s presence is the only one that hums white with tranquility.

“Appo’s already questioned her, sir. But she says that she doesn’t know anything,” Jesse scowls.

And all at once, his fear and confusion is replaced by unbridled anger.

Rex stalks up to the energy wall that separates them and hisses, “Did you know?” 

“About his plan to have you kill each other? Of course not,” comes her reply. Her voice is disturbingly serene for a Jedi suspected of treason against the Republic.

“Then what is his goal here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he a Sith? Is he a Separatist?”

“Rex, I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me!” His frustration explodes and she flinches. “You’re his Padawan! He trusts you! Which means that  _ we _ can’t trust you!”

“Obviously he  _ doesn’t _ trust me, because I have no idea as to why he did this.” Iona finally turns from her seat to face him, and she’s looking at him in a way that she’s never looked at him before. Disappointment and a little bit of desperation. It strikes a place directly between his ribs, burning and throbbing and painful, disrupting his heartbeat and tightening his breath.

Rex grits his teeth. “Then how am  _ I _ supposed to trust you?”

Iona stands up and levels his gaze through the energy wall. “Because I didn’t run when you arrested me? Because I could’ve taken you all with one lightsaber behind my back and escaped with him, and you know it? Because I saved your life? Because  _ I _ trust  _ you _ ?”

The silence that falls between them is deafening. The weight of it is crushing and freeing all at once, and Rex lets personal feelings be damned. Because he  _ does _ trust her. Has from the start.

He needs her if they’re going to figure this out, and he’s fairly sure that she needs him, too.

“Captain!” The call from across the room startles him and breaks their gaze. “He’s awake!”

___

Useless. She’s so  _ fucking _ useless. 

Because Rex is right: Iona  _ should _ know what’s going on. She should’ve had some sort of clue. She should’ve seen this coming.

But she was as blind as the rest of them. Krell’s Padawan, a literal extension of his teachings, a failure to the rest of the Order. Iona had been so sure that she knew him well enough to see through his words—see through  _ him _ . But it seems as though she doesn’t know him at all. Hasn’t for some time.

When Rex asks the question, the end of it catches on the edge of his teeth and falls limp, despairing. “Why, General? Why kill your own men?” 

When Krell chuckles at him, it makes Iona’s stomach churn. “Because I can. Because you fell for it. Because you’re  _ inferior. _ ”

“But you’re a Jedi. How could you?”

“A Jedi?” Krell scoffs and laughs at him. “I am no longer naive enough to be a Jedi. A new power is rising. I have foreseen it. The Jedi are going to lose this war, and the Republic will be  _ ripped _ apart from the inside. In its place will come a new order, and I will rule as part of it."

A cold fist closes over her heart and crushes it into sand.

“You’re a Separatist.” Rex spits the word like it’s filth on his boot.

“Ha! I serve no one’s side but my own. And soon, Count Dooku’s. After I’ve succeeded in driving the Republic from Umbara, he will reward my actions and make me his new apprentice.”

It’s so much worse than she ever could’ve anticipated—the declaration cuts like vibroblade, a jagged wound in her chest. It spills tears and blood and broken promises. 

It all makes terrible, painful sense. How could she not have noticed? 

But she needs to know it for herself. Needs to  _ see _ it. So she does something she hasn’t dared to do in a long time: extends a hand out into the Force to brush against his presence, one that Iona remembers from so long ago as a small star, as healing and comforting as it is brimming with power.

Her touch is met with darkness.

Iona yanks herself away and stumbles backwards, colliding with the wall of her cell and slumping to her knees. A burning, raging  _ something _ crawls up the tips of her fingers and encases her whole limb in an ice that scalds, sinking every one of her individual cells into atrophy. Pong’s voice is in her cell, in her head, clawing up her windpipe, sneering and echoing.

“Now you see it, Iona. We have always walked the same path together. My darkness is yours.” She can hear his smile without having to see it.

She moans. It’s engulfed her into an ear-splitting pain that rattles through her skull and sends tremors through her whole body.  _ I’m not like you. I’m not like you. _

Every part of her is breaking. Torn up at the edges and ripped in half like a piece of flimsi.

“Oh, but you are. So easily manipulated, my apprentice,” Pong croons. His voice is four walls that box her in, keep her trapped, unmovable in her own conscious. “So full of rage. The Count will be pleased with your addition. I only wish that I had a little more time, more time to convince you…”

_ Get out _ ! her mind screams at him.  _ GET OUT! _

Something gives under the pressure—snaps like a rubber band and releases a shockwave into the Force. She can feel his presence release hers, and the pain slowly begins to ebb away. 

Iona doesn’t hear her own voice until she’s collapsed into a duraplast chestplate, colliding with sturdy arms that hold her upright, while she mutters, “Get out. Get out. Get  _ out _ .”

“Iona?” Rex’s face swims into view above her, scrunched with worry. “Iona? Can you hear me?”

Maker, she can’t form words. Her tongue feels heavy against the roof of her mouth, and she grunts in a pitiful response.

“Kriff- how do you feel? Are you okay?”

She’s slowly coming to, vision sharpening and tongue loosening. She can sense several things at once: troopers conversing quietly behind them, Dogma’s gentle cries, and Rex, hunched over on the cell floor beside her, arms supporting her shoulders, eyes blinking anxiously into hers just inches apart.

“‘M okay,” she breathes. “Feel fine.” 

Relief dazzles his features, and he flashes her one of his rare, weak smiles. “You blacked out there for a second. Had us all worried.”

Sitting up is easy enough with Rex’s arm wrapped around her back. “I felt… in the Force… no, no, I don’t need it. Thank you.” She shakes her head and pushes away the medkit that the medic—Kix, is his name—brings over. 

“Can you stand?”

Though still disoriented, Iona can stand on her own, but Rex helps her up all the same, arm looped around her waist. She’s grateful for his steadfast presence when it hits her all at once and she looks over at Krell.

He’s facing away from them now, turned towards the back of his cell, eyes closed in meditation. Ignoring them. White-hot fury washes over the cracks in her body. 

Traitor. He’s a traitor.

The word resonates and echoes, dull and clanging, inside of her. Any anger that she’s ever held towards him feels like nothing compared to now. To betray the Order, to turn his back on his family, to manipulate his apprentice into another vessel of evil, and to act so  _ indifferently _ . Iona feels her stunned disposition begin to crack, exposing the agony beneath, and it  _ frustrates _ her.

Because it should be  _ easy. _ Easy to understand his betrayal, wrap her head around the sheer morality of it all, be able to let go. She’s a Jedi, for Maker’s sake, it’s everything she’s ever been taught.

But all of it seems to dissipate when she holds a candle to the fact that she loved— _ loves _ —him like a father. Pong had brought her to the Temple, observed her early training, chose her as his Padawan, formed her with his own two hands. He was all she knew. It was all she had ever been given. And it’s  _ hard _ to accept, much harder than Iona is comfortable admitting to herself, and she almost sobs out loud over how foolish she feels.

And still, on the outside, Iona sets her jaw and looks away, ignoring the stinging in her eyes and pushing down bile. It is too much to bear all at once.

She lets Rex steer her away from her old master and onto the lift with Jesse and Fives. “We need to make a decision,” he says lowly.

Iona nods mutely. Pong is still turned away from them. Away from her.

_ He’s disappointed in you, _ something whispers in her ear. And as fucked up as it all is, that thought still makes her ache.

Rex doesn’t leave her side until the four of them have made it outside of the command center, away from any prying ears. She can walk just fine without using him as a crutch, but Iona leans into his weight anyways and is quietly grateful to be held with good excuse. She reluctantly peels herself away from his arm, because now Jesse and Fives are looking at them oddly, and she feels her cheeks go unusually hot.

Jesse is the first to break the silence, coughs loudly and asks, “So, what do we do now?”

“Well, there’s really only one option, is there?” Fives crosses his arms. “If what he’s saying is true and the Umbarans  _ are _ circling back towards us, we might be screwed. They could wipe us out, take back the capital,  _ and _ release Krell.”

“So what’s our only option?”

“We execute him,” Fives says simply.

Iona’s head snaps up.  _ “What?” _

Rex falls silent.

“It’s the only way,” the ARC argues. “I know you don’t like it, Commander, but you know that it’s the right thing to do. We’re risking too much if we keep him alive.”

Her vision blurs at the edges, sharp and disorienting, like coming out of a dream. Iona shuts her eyes and exhales, long and quavering, hoping that the oxygen will soothe the slamming of her heart and the shaking of her ribcage. As if this situation could be even worse than it already was. “He has to stand trial in front of the Council,” she manages, numb. “He needs to be tried as a  _ Jedi _ .”

“We don’t have time for that,” Fives’ voice is surprisingly tender, yet firm all the same, a sound that she wasn’t sure the loudmouthed ARC was even capable of making. “Sir,” he adds hastily.

“Then we know what we have to do.” Rex finally speaks, and draws his blasters. His face has gone ashen, but his resolve is evident.  _ A spark of tenacity,  _ she remembers Pong say. He couldn’t have been more correct.

“No.” The single syllable takes him by surprise. But she can’t let him do this, let  _ any _ of them shoulder this aftermath. Not when it’s her burden to bear. “You’re not doing it. I am.”

His eyes widen. “Iona-”

Iona extends her palms, despite the quiver in her muscles, for his blasters. But Rex’s own arms remain staunchly at his sides, and he stares defiantly back at her. “No way. I can’t let you do that.”

“I’m a Jedi,” she responds with equal stubbornness. “I’ll be tried by the Council in the Temple. They’re more likely to forgive me than the Senate is likely to forgive one of you.”

“They’ll kick you out,” Rex chokes. “They’ll expel you from the order.”

She expects to feel grief, some flash of panic at the thought of losing her entire livelihood. But there is barely any fluctuation in the pain that already crowds her chest, that keeps her barely breathing and ready to fall apart, and yet Iona doesn’t sink into the floor just yet. She thinks that, somehow, that is a consequence she was already prepared to accept.

“Maybe that is what is meant to be,” she murmurs. “They’ll spare me. The sentence for a clone that kills his general is certainly death, or worse.”

Rex  _ growls _ and pushes himself directly in front of her. “Are you even  _ listening _ to yourself? That’s the exact reason why you shouldn’t be the one to kill him, you’re not the expendable one!”

Iona’s throat tightens. “And you are?”

“Yes!”

_ Oh, Rex. _ Anguish and bitterness bite at her tongue, that he was conditioned to throw himself in front of a Jedi, to think that he was part of a matched set, to think that his life was worth so little. “You know I don’t think that’s true.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think, it’s my duty-”

“I won’t let you take the fall for my mistake-”

“It wasn’t your mistake, don’t say that-”

“Give me the blasters, Captain! That’s an  _ order _ .” She reaches out for them again, and this time, he automatically raises his arms and drops the weapons into her palms without a second of hesitation. It’s then that Iona realizes that she had laced her words with suggestion from the Force, completely unwittingly.

Fives and Jesse glance between each other, equally stunned and perplexed at the exchange they just witnessed. 

Rex blinks twice, staring down at his blasters in her hands in utter confusion. “I- I didn’t-”

She stares too, the clunky weapons already feeling too large in her hands. “But you did,” she murmurs. They feel uncomfortably heavy by her sides, like their weight would drag her through the floor and keep her sedated under concrete and her own grief. But Iona steels herself, grips their hilts so tightly that their edges dig lines into her palms, and looks at the three troopers lined up in front of her. “Let’s go.”

She turns and walks back into the command center. Rex makes a noise of protest, trembling and resistant, but one of his brothers silences him. 

The lift ride up is punctuated with bated silence, horrific anticipation. Iona can feel Rex’s signature in the Force just beside hers, twisting and shrieking in defiance, though he stays outwardly quiet. 

But Iona is not nearly as turbulent. The thrumming of her heart has ceased and she’s… resigned herself. It’s surprising, almost a little frightening, but the empty void that swells inside of her is it’s own testament. Or perhaps, she has pushed it all down and tightened the stopper just enough to hold everything at bay. For now.

When they enter the brig and the hum of the lift stops, the silence settles in—cold, ringing, severe—and Iona is immediately seized with the urge to run away from it. But she can’t. This is happening.

Fives walks over to release Dogma, who looks grateful to be taken away from Krell. Her old master watches them the whole time, watches  _ her.  _ His beady eyes flick between Dogma who stands on shaky legs, the blasters in Iona’s hands, and Rex, who stands defensively behind her left shoulder.

The hilts of the blasters have gone slick from her sweaty palms. When she turns to face Krell, her words come out surprisingly steady. “Turn around. Step towards the wall.”

He complies readily, but not without rolling his eyes first. Jesse steps forward to bring down the wall.

“On your knees.”

He  _ laughs _ at her. Cold and commanding, the sound echoes through the brig and tips the room on its side. “So. The apprentice is the one to kill the master. How fitting.”

“We both know that this is how it should end.” A fitting conclusion to their story, she tells herself. Yet how she wishes it could’ve been avoided. 

“They’ll expel you from the order.” It’s a statement, not a taunt or a jab, and Pong does little to hide his flicker of discouragement.  _ A waste of training, _ he very clearly reads. 

“Then it’s no one’s fault but yours.” Iona lifts the blaster, aims for a spot on his head, as if her hands aren’t shaking so badly that she might just miss the shot entirely. “Now,  _ on your knees.” _

The sudden fierceness in her voice surprises them both. He pauses to glance at her over his shoulder once again, but does as she says. 

“Oh, Iona. So good. So quick to protect those that need you,” Pong croons. There’s an insult hidden there, something backhanded to taunt her weakness. She doesn’t care. She  _ shouldn’t _ care.

“Did you ever suspect it, young one?” 

“Yes.” It’s automatic. She feels Rex glance at her, shocked. But now that he’s asked, she sees the last few years more clearly. Can pick out moments from her memory that felt…off, little sayings or outbursts, terrible displays of his temper. She replays them in her mind’s eye, knowing that he is watching her recognize it, too. “Which is why I am certain that you cannot be kept alive.”

“Are you? Certain?” This is  _ amusing _ for him. Pong observes her like a youngling caught in an uncompromising spar, a result of her naivety. His back is turned but she can imagine his expression: eyebrows quirked condescendingly, mouth pulled into a smirk. “It’s not too late, Iona. You can still join me. We can walk out of this place together.”

It’s Iona’s turn to laugh, incredulous and choked and full of aching. “And why,” she demands, “would I  _ ever _ do that?”

“Because you love me,” he says simply.

_ Fuck you, _ she wants to scream.  _ Fuck you. _

But words fail her.

“You’re attached to me like a daughter is to her father,” he continues. “It’s what fails to make you a perfect Jedi. Your passion burns fuel for your anger.” 

“Stop,” Iona whispers.

“You seek my approval, you seek my love, and at the same time, you hate me for not giving you those things when you deserved them. You can’t kill me because you need me. You can’t kill me because then you’ll never get closure. You’re  _ empty. _ I made sure of that.”

So he knew. She had never been able to hide anything from him. Every prick of irritation, every word that she silently snarled at him, every heavy wanting of affirmation, he saw through them all. He knew what she so craved from him, and denied her of it. 

“But I do,” Pong speaks again, impossibly gentle, and Iona feels the beginnings of tears prick at her eyes. “I  _ am _ proud of you, young one. And I love you.”

_ I love you.  _

It pulls at her heartstrings until it’s being shoved up her esophagus, everywhere and nowhere at all and impossible to get a breath out.

A single word chokes itself from the furthest corner of her heart, unforgiving and boiling with anger. “Liar.”

“Not to you,” comes his yielding reply.

When fingers encased in leather wrap themselves around Iona’s wrist, she almost jerks her hand back in surprise. But it’s Rex at her side, saying her name quietly, grounding her. She’s not sure if it’s a plea to kill him, get it over with, or give him the gun to finish Krell himself, but she can’t do either, limbs frozen solid with despair, three words playing over and over in her head like a broken holo audio.

“Join me,” Pong says.

Iona squeezes her eyes shut, cheeks wet from the  _ I love you _ that slowly devours her.

Rex’s fingers tighten around her wrist. Her finger is poised over the trigger,  _ you can do it, you  _ have _ to, just pull it back- _

“Iona-”

_ BANG _ ! A shot rings out, but her hand doesn’t feel the force of it. Her eyes fly open, taking in the sight of the smoking blaster wound that penetrates his back. Krell groans, sways, then slumps over onto the floor. He doesn’t move again. 

Dogma is holding a blaster between cuffed hands. The holster at Fives’ hip is empty. 

“Oh,” she breathes.

“I… I had to!” Dogma gasps. “He betrayed us… I’m sorry, Commander…”

“I know.” Her voice is nothing more than mist. “I know.”

She doesn’t. She’s never felt more lost in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adopted the headcanon about Fives and Echo being tube twins from [this post](https://fadinglight123.tumblr.com/post/619524352252297216/a-random-list-of-headcanons-about-my-favorite). So cute I cried.


	3. Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chaos after the storm. Iona has to make a choice, but before that, she has to attend a funeral.

On their way back to Coruscant, Iona is a wall of silence. Rex is present for her report to members of the Council and the Senate, which she delivers with unnatural calm. The Council promises a further discussion upon her arrival to the Temple and dismisses them, but before he can even open his mouth, she quickly turns and glides out of the command center.

He watches her retreating back for a few moments before it registers that someone is calling his name. Rex turns, a little dazedly, towards Ahsoka, who still has her pilot goggles pushed on top of her montrals and is holding out a datapad for him with a single eyebrow arched. “Rex. Sign.”

He does, all while she watches him with an odd expression. “You okay?”

He mutters an affirmation, thrusting the datapad back into her hands so he can massage the back of his neck. “Just tired,” he sighs after a moment.

“Wanna go down to the mess with me?” she offers. “I’m meeting Barriss.”

Rex shakes his head quickly. He doesn’t want to intrude, and he’s especially not in the mood to socialize with someone he’s not very well acquainted with. Ahsoka’s company is usually alright, but even this exchange was draining him. “I have work to do,” is the excuse he comes up with, and hurries out of the command center before she can question him further.

He wanders around the flagship, seemingly aimlessly, avoiding the mess hall and the barracks and anywhere he might see Ahsoka or Cody or Fives or any troopers that might ask questions. Rex doesn’t have the strength to answer them. 

It isn’t until he finds himself rounding the corner to the hallway of officers’ quarters that he realizes who he wants to talk to.

Truthfully, he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say to her. Rex is no good with words—pretty terrible, actually. His job mostly consists of strategic planning and knowing how to fire a blaster and keeping himself alive, none of which require much emotional depth. 

But he knows that he has to at least try. There don’t seem to be enough languages in the galaxy that can express what he wants to tell her. But the hole in his chest that bleeds misery and fury and bitterness for what should have been is telling enough; it slowly trickles into the cracks of his body and threatens to swallow him whole, and if Rex is feeling  _ this _ suffocated, can Iona even breathe at all?

Her quarters are at the end of the hall, the last sterile grey door on his left. Rex pauses in front of it, waiting until his heartbeat has slowed along to the thrum of the engines below his feet. 

This is what General Kenobi would call an “Anakin plan”: going in half-blind with maybe twelve percent of an idea, hoping that the Maker is in a merciful mood and that you’re overcompensating for droids in your head. Only right now, there are no droids, just a girl and her grief and Rex’s own aching emptiness, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to draw a plan for this one at all.

She must know that he’s here. Rex doubts he could sneak up on her.

He knocks before he can psych himself out of it. There’s a few beats of pulsing silence before the door swooshes open, and Iona is standing in the door frame in front of him. Her hair is loose and damp from the shower, hanging slick and straight over her scalp and shoulders, and she’s dressed out of her Jedi robes and into a dark sleeping tunic.

She blinks, surprised. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Her eyes are red, but Rex can’t tell if they’re bloodshot from tears or just ringed from exhaustion. “Uh, you weren’t sleeping, were you?”

Iona shakes her head no. “Can’t,” she admits. “I’ve been trying.” Then she stiffens slightly, as if remembering ranks and protocol and all the bits that Rex wants to throw out the window, and she straightens her shoulders. “Did you…want to talk about something?”

“I...” Talk didn’t seem like the right word for it. He wanted…peace of mind. “I just… I wanted to check in. Commander.”

He adds the last part mostly out of obligation, and she cuts him a slightly exasperated look for it, but the tiny lift of her mouth makes him glad that he did. But still she doesn’t say anything, her eyes flitting back to her bare feet, the space between her brow creasing as she tries to form a response.

Maybe she doesn’t want a friend, he considers. Maybe she’s perfectly grounded enough to move past this on her own, using the cosmic Force or whatever methods Rex isn’t so fortunate to have. She’s stronger than him, much stronger than he’ll ever be. And he’ll get over this one, more or less. He always does.

And then Iona is stepping aside, leaving the doorway clear, asking in a voice so hopeful, “Do you want to come in?”

_ Yes. _

Rex almost trips over the door ledge as he steps through.

His eyes have to adjust to the room’s sudden darkness after walking under the ship’s harsh fluorescents. The blinds on the window above the desk are drawn, probably to block out the disturbance of blinding hyperspace beams. The only light source in the room comes from underneath the fresher door, a thin slanting strip that pushes everything else in the room into partial visibility. Rex can make out her robes folded neatly on top of the desk, the bunk pushed against the opposite wall with the blanket half discarded, evidence of her failed attempts at sleep.

But it doesn’t register until she’s pressed the controls closed behind him, the quiet quickly settling without the purr of the engines, that they are very, very much alone.

Iona makes no move to turn on the lights, just shuffles back towards the bunk and sinks onto it, drawing up her knees and tilting her head back against her wall. She looks as though she’s been folded inwards, smaller and frailer than he’s ever seen her, swallowed up by the ballooning dark fabric she wears and the shadows that flit across her face.

Rex sits on the bunk beside her, keeping his distance. For what feels like eternity, they circle each other quietly, two moons in orbit. He waits. It doesn’t seem right for him to start. 

After a while, Iona finds the words. “Can’t even finish my paperwork,” she mutters half-heartedly. “It usually gets my mind off of things. I thought I’d sleep, and try again. But I can’t—” She stops herself when her voice begins to waver. In the low light, Rex sees her tighten her grip around her knees.

“I’ll handle it,” he says firmly.

She shakes her head, like he knew she would. “You have enough to do. With Dogma and all. I should…I can finish some forms. Have to be good for something.”

“You’ve been good for plenty.”

“Not plenty. I could’ve done more.” Her grief is smeared across every corner of this room, layers upon layers of mourning and regret for too many people to count. “I always could’ve done more.” 

He swallows. “Is that you or him talking?”

She falls silent. “I can’t tell,” she finally whispers. When she chuckles, it’s bone dry, choked out like it’s difficult. “Isn’t that strange? I can’t even tell which thoughts are mine and which ones he put there.”

“You’ll be able to,” he assures her softly. “In time.” It’s not the answer he wants to give her, not as hopeful or definitive as he would like, but what other solace is there to offer?

Iona only releases a slow, steadying breath, not seemingly satisfied by it, either. Nothing about this situation can be so easily mended. If it could be, neither of them would be here, bleeding openly into each other’s spaces, not knowing which wound to begin patching up first.

“Do you hate him?” she asks softly. Her fingers tap jerkily on top of the thin sheets. “Do you hate him as much as I do?” 

Watching her mourn Krell is as painful as it is jarring. Because yeah, Rex  _ hates _ the traitor, more than he’s probably ever hated anyone, the anger-disgust-disbelief twisting violently in his gut and choking the oxygen out of his lungs at even the faintest mention of his existence. The piece of shit won’t even have to suffer for everything he’s done.

But Iona doesn’t  _ hate _ Krell, not really; at least, not the same way that Rex does. Whatever violent, shrieking emotion she harbors for him is too complex to understand, filled with thoughts and memories that he can’t help her sift through. He will never be able to understand, and that thought sort of kills him.

“Probably not,” is all he says, turning his neck to look at her a little better. She had been watching him carefully, but averts her eyes when they meet his through the dark. “I’d say you’ve got better reasons.”

She makes a noise of uncertainty. Her fingers tap more quickly into the sheets. “I don’t,” she mutters. “I- I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be this angry.”

“Why not?”

In the corner of his eye, he watches her hands clench the bedsheets into her fists, then release them. “To give into your anger is not the Jedi way.” She says it so automatically, so monotonously, like she was programmed to repeat it to herself. 

“I don’t think that means—”

“You  _ don’t _ know what it means.” Her voice is sharp, a blade that cuts through the subdued air and morphs it in its wake. “You’ll  _ never _ understand what that means. I—” Iona runs a palm over her face before she whispers helplessly, “ _ —I _ don’t even understand.”

_ You’re empty. I made sure of that. _

He watches her flail in open water. And it’s not just because of his death: Krell had been a traitor to the Republic for much longer before Umbara. For exactly how long, they might never be certain. But he knows that she’s driving herself  _ insane _ just thinking about it, drowning in her mistrust and paranoia. Hells, she doesn’t even feel completely  _ of this realm _ right now, even sitting next to him, like she’s got one foot stuck in the past and there’s nothing yanking her back to the present.

Iona is speaking again, half mumbled and rushed. “I don’t know.” The words slide, hopeless and miserable, back down her throat. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going like this.” She chokes it out like it’s something to be ashamed of. 

He thinks that if he reached out and touched her right now, she would shatter beneath his fingertips like a bullet puncturing glass. But Rex watches as she crumples further into herself, like a collapsing star, and he wonders how  _ he’s _ supposed to be the strong one right now, when all he wants to do is fall apart, too.

“Me neither.” The syllables catch on the roof of his mouth and die, weak and wanting. It’s all he can manage.

“I’m sorry,” Iona whispers. “For everything.”

She fills him with an emotion so unfamiliar, so impossible to put into words. Like he is wilting and flying and laughing and crying all at once, because how  _ dare _ she apologize to him. Not after she tried to carry his burden, fought for them tooth and nail. Not when all he’s ever been is thankful for her. 

“You’re not the one who should be sorry.” It doesn’t even begin to express the longing growing inside of him.

“I know. I just wanted to say it.”

He hears the sheets rustle as she moves, over the sheets, tentatively sliding herself across the bunk until she comes to rest next to him. Her move is a little startling; all this time, Rex thought that he would be the one reaching. But here she was, the first one to close the gaping distance between them, ever full of surprises.

And then:

“Thank you.” 

The softly spoken words breach the comfortable silence between them and release something in his chest that slowly spreads outwards in a lifting, tender flame. When Iona leans her forehead against his encased shoulder and her breath hitches in her chest, he hears it. And he knows.

Wordlessly, he shifts himself towards her so she can lean into his chest when the first sob rips through her body. The sound of it is terrible—rasped, agonized breaths that seem to tear new holes into her lungs—but the tremble of her shoulders is even worse. Rex just holds her, slots his chin against her temple and sags backwards onto the bunk, keeping her steady. 

He’s never seen a Jedi cry—not even his own, not like this. 

It takes him a moment to realize that his face is wet, too.

Even after she’s calmed down and silence falls between them again, she stays curled into his side, perfectly still. Rex almost thinks that she’s fallen asleep and begins to plot ways to move her from his chest without waking her, until she reaches up to wipe at her face and his arm falls back over his stomach. 

“You should rest,” she whispers.

Rex grunts in agreement.  _ Maker, _ he’s tired. He should be able to go much longer than this without a proper rest, but the events from the last few rotations have been draining, to say the least, and a nap right now sounds absolutely divine.

He slowly peels away from her side, not wanting to disturb her, moving to shift his legs over the side of the bunk, until a hand reaches up to tighten around the folds of his kama, holding him in place.

“Barracks are far,” she mumbles. “You can stay here. If...if y’want.”

Rex short circuits. Forgets how to breathe or what he had even been doing here in the first place. He just zeroes in on the half needing, half hopefulness in her voice, the arm still wound around his midsection and how she clings to him, and the fact that she wants him to  _ stay _ . 

He manages a croaked “okay,” and it’s not until then that Iona’s arm retracts itself from around his stomach, satisfied with his answer.

He’s never shelled off his armor faster. Nonessential to essential pieces on the top of the pile by the bed, boots last and kicked off in a mess that would’ve earned him a month’s latrine duties on Kamino. He shouldn’t be thinking too much into it—Iona obviously wasn’t—but when he settles on his side behind her, she wiggles towards him to press her back against his chest, and all Rex can do is  _ think. _

Think about how close she is; his face is pushed against her shoulder, so close that if he inhales deeply enough he can smell the lingering durang soap on her skin and in her hair. She’s making herself small against his chest now, curling further into her center, and he thinks about how fucking  _ unfair _ this galaxy is to people who deserve better from it. And he thinks about how, if she wasn’t  _ jetii _ and he wasn’t born a lab experiment, that he could afford to pretend that this was something more than what it actually is.

But they are what they are, and it’s hard to put a name on something that he wasn’t conditioned to feel at all. He thinks about that, too.

He doesn’t reach peace of mind until Iona grasps his hand lying over her stomach, her fingers small and warm over his. When a wave of exhaustion rises, Rex lets himself go under.

… 

For a while, she just watches him sleep.

She’s turned away from him on the bed, so technically, it’s not so much watching as it is just feeling, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against her spine, breathing together. But it’s an act just as intimate, and Iona, in the most selfish thing she’s possibly ever done, lets herself enjoy it. She’s not supposed to, she’s very aware. Jedi aren’t meant to form attachments; the reminder rots, sticky and sluggish, underneath her skin. She had failed there with Pong. She’s failing again with Rex. 

But  _ was _ it failure? It didn’t feel like it. Only this delicate, fluttering thing caught between her ribs that pulsed warmly at the sight of him, slow and comforting and unlike anything she had ever felt before. This is usually when she swallows and shoves the feeling away, buries it along with everything else she doesn’t let herself feel.

Only she doesn’t. It’s not something she  _ wants _ to put away.

Standing before the Council, though, makes her rethink all of that.

Iona squirms uncomfortably under the gazes of the twelve council members as she retells the full sequence of events on Umbara. The memories resurface, bubbling angrily as they play themselves over in her mind, and she has to fight to keep her voice level. As she gets further into the retelling, the individual faces of the Council morph into expressions even more troubled than hers.

Before, whenever she faced them, she had Pong there to absorb some of her anxiety, and he would maintain most of their attention anyways. But it’s the first time she’s come alone.

When she finishes, there is a haunted silence that sweeps over the room. No one moves until Yoda speaks.

“Difficult to see, the Dark Side is. Especially within one of our own.” For the first time, Iona sees Master Yoda look as old as he truly was.

“It makes too much sense, with his kind of casualty rates,” Windu grimaces, folding his hands over his jaw. “We’ve been blind.”

“If anyone was blind, it was me,” Iona says quietly.

Yoda shakes his head. “Blame you we do not, Padawan Orum. A skilled Force user Krell was. More than capable of this deception.”

“But I  _ knew.” _ Her voice tapers out into a whisper. “I knew there was something wrong. And I did nothing.”

“An allegiance to one’s master, a padawan always feels. Understand your oversight, we do. But a mistake you should make again, it is not.”

Iona can only nod meekly, casting her eyes away in shame and turning to look out at the setting sun. It casts brilliant rays of fleeting sunlight over the industrial horizon, bathing their world in gold. It’s too beautiful for a moment so full of sadness.

“Something more on your mind, hm?” Yoda tilts his head to study her.

“I…” She has so many questions, but so many of them can only be answered by a man already dead. She has to learn to make peace with the uncertainty. So Iona brings up the only question she  _ knows _ the Council can answer. “My training. How will I finish it?”

Yoda and Windu share a look that makes its way around the rest of the room. “It is within the opinion of the Council,” Windu says slowly, leaning forward onto his forearms, “that you have completed your training.”

Iona stares. She couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Completed?” she repeats dumbly.

“You showed remarkable resilience and courage on Umbara. Traits of a Jedi Knight.” Then he gives her a small, rare smile. “We’ve come to the consensus that we believe you are ready to take your trials.”

_ Her trials. _ The realization settles like a jagged rock against her insides. 

When she hesitates, there is evident concern in Yoda’s voice. “Your thoughts, Padawan?”

“I really don’t mean to be disrespectful,” she stammers. “But I…I don’t think I can.”

The sudden bolt of shock that ripples throughout the room makes Iona wince. She knows how ridiculous it sounds. There probably hasn’t ever been a single padawan in Jedi history that’s never not jumped at the chance to take their trials, much less turned it down when it’s being presented to them on a silver platter. Could the Council retract their offer on the basis of cowardice?

“You don’t think you can?” Windu repeats, sounding slightly stunned.

“I just—” Iona bites her lip and tries to block out the looks she’s receiving from all angles of the room. “I just don’t think that I’m ready.” 

“We have observed your studies. Pong always spoke very highly of you and your abilities. If he still belonged to the Light, I would imagine that he would want this for you as well.”

It’s meant as encouragement, but to Iona, it feels like a low blow. The last person she wants to hear about right now, especially in regards to her training, is Krell. If anything, the sentiment only makes her uneasiness increase. “With all due respect Master, with everything that’s happened, I don’t think Krell’s word should be taken too seriously.”

“Fair enough.” Windu smiles again, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and is drawn tight like it’s painful. “Nevertheless, this isn’t the reaction we were expecting.”

Yoda, who has been silently studying her for a while, speaks again. “Still wish to become a knight, do you?”

And  _ that _ makes her stop. Because the first word on her the tip of her tongue isn’t  _ yes _ , it’s…nothing. It’s just complete blankness, and that somehow feels worse than a knee-jerk reaction  _ no _ .

“Yes,” she says, because she knows that it’s what they want to hear, and it’s what will get her out of this meeting the fastest. But the word feels odd in her mouth. “I just need time,” she whispers. “Time. I need to- to think. And prepare.”

Yoda nods, but he looks even sadder now than he did before. “Very well. All the time you need, you shall have.” 

Iona is dismissed with a wave of his hand, and the Council session adjourns.

… 

Rex’s mood had sort of been improving since they touched the surface, but that all goes south when he turns on the shower faucet and is greeted with unforgivingly cold water. On the other side of the showers, he hears Jesse swear furiously and scamper out of the way of the icy stream. Hot water in the barracks must be busted, again.

It happens more often that it should. Rex offhandedly mentioned this to Anakin once, who was immediately appalled and offered for any of the 501st to take hot showers in his personal quarters in the temple (which apparently, always has hot water. Hm). Rex has never taken his general up on the offer, though, and he’s not about to start now.

Besides, he’s never minded a cold shower. Maker knows that he’s had to endure worse. Plus, the freezing temperature does well to take his mind off of other things—sort of.

He can’t stop thinking about Iona and their—er—nap. Really, that’s all that it was, getting some innocent rest after another grueling campaign, but reliving the feeling of her, warm and glowing beside him, still feels frustratingly taboo. It feels  _ especially _ inappropriate to be thinking about it in the shower, naked and vulnerable with his brothers around, for Maker’s sake. 

Rex sets his jaw and rolls the bar of soap between his palms. The freezing water isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. His mind keeps wandering to far-off places,  _ dangerous _ places, that someone like him shouldn’t even be allowed to visit, but he can’t help it. She’s Jedi, he has to remind himself, and that somewhat steels his resolve again. It’d be fraternization at its finest, and a complete violation of the code she lived under. It’s impossible, he repeats to himself over and over, as if the word will sink into his bloodstream and change his feelings overnight.

But the fact remains that he is completely, utterly stuck on Iona Orum. Rex slaps a palm against the shower wall and groans.  _ Fuck. _

The freezing water is starting to make the clench of his muscles even worse, so he rinses off the remaining soap and grabs a towel on his way out. He’s only just wriggled into the lower half of a fresh set of blacks, making his way back to his bunk, when he spots Cody leaned against the metal frame. The barracks are slowly emptying out, men heading into the city to distract themselves with liquor and girls, so the two of them are some of the only ones left in the room. 

His older brother gives Rex’s disgruntled expression one glance-over and shoots him a sympathetic look. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, even though he knows it’s not convincing in the slightest. But Cody lets it drop, knowing his boundaries better than anyone. It makes Rex feel a little guilty at his less-than-friendly response. Cody lost men on Umbara, too. Good men like Waxer, who were lured into the same traps as they were, made fools of just like they were. So he softens and adds, “Just thinking about a lot.”

Cody nods, grimacing. “Well, I got something else for you to think about.” No more batting around the subject. “Kenobi told Skywalker to tell you that the 501st is allowed at Krell’s funeral tomorrow.” Cody shrugs. “Obviously, Skywalker obviously found me first, so he made it my job.” 

Rex, now fully wiggled into his blacks, flops backwards on the bunk and sighs. “ _ Kriff _ .”

“Yeah,” Cody agrees lowly, moving to sit by his knees and combs a hand through his short buzzed curls. “Are you gonna go?”

His first reaction is to say no, he’ll have duties to fulfill before they’re slated to ship out tomorrow evening. He’s never been to a Jedi funeral before, he knows that the whole thing will only make him feel like an intruder, and besides, memories of Krell are not ones that he’s very keen on revisiting. But Rex would never forget the look on Anakin’s face when he showed him the casualties report, his wretched expression or the way his throat worked as he slowly thumbed through the seemingly never ending list of designations. Or the way Ahsoka seemed to get even smaller beneath her robe when she watched their depleted numbers stagger through the flagship, more pieces of her wide-eyed idealism shattered and lost. The rage boils up again, heavy and thick like a smog that fills his nose and paints everything red. “Yeah,” Rex says quietly, but this time it comes out as more of a snarl. “I am.”

Cody nods. “Good. Piss on his grave for me.”

He chuckles, but there’s no humor behind it. “Oh, I will.”

Secretly, Rex hopes that there is no grave to piss on at all. Krell doesn’t deserve a tombstone, nothing to commemorate his memory, nothing that anyone can use to honor him. A tombstone is permanent. Krell deserves to be forgotten. 

Then he wonders what Iona wants, if she might want some place just to miss who he used to be, and the idea makes him ache terribly.

He feels Cody nudge his leg with his knuckles, and he turns to meet his brother’s expectant gaze. “Hey. Wanna get wasted?”

Rex sits up straight on the bunk. “Kriff, yeah.”

He’s in the mood to put off more than a few emotions tonight.

… 

The mind healers had suggested sleep after their session, but it doesn’t seem to want to take Iona as easily as before. She shifts restlessly until the boredom sets in, at which point she kicks off the covers and resorts to pacing.

The walls of her chambers make her feel caged in, but there’s nowhere else she really wants to be, so Iona sits by the window and watches the midnight city below her. Her fingers splay themselves across the glass and leave tiny fogged-up halos around her fingerprints as she leans over the ledge to notice the far drop down. She wonders if she’ll feel this trapped in her own room for the rest of her life. The thought terrifies her more than anything.

She wants a distraction. Sleep is no good; even if she could do it, she’d be plagued with nightmares and visions until she woke up in a pool of her own sweat and make the whole thing worse for herself. 

Krell has bottles of Corellian whiskey stashed in his quarters, Iona remembers with sudden interest. Always more than a few, and the expensive ones, too; she had been thoroughly shocked when he had shown her the copious stash below his sink, and especially when he had poured out a little for her to taste. She knew his codes, she could just sneak upstairs and take them without anyone knowing, it’s not like  _ he _ was going to notice them missing. 

But then she remembers that they’ve definitely searched his quarters already, and the bottles are probably being hoarded by another Jedi Master with a drinking problem. Iona slumps against the wall a little miserably. She’s terribly stupid for not thinking of that in the first place. 

Besides, going back to that room, being in a space that he so frequently occupied—that’d probably be even stupider of her.

She can feel herself spiraling. Picking apart every moment they had together from the last few years, obsessing over his phrasings and his movements, hauling every single lesson he ever taught her underneath a microscope and dissecting them for a hidden, evil meaning until it lay in heaping, bloody scraps and she was left with nothing. Nothing that made sense or even felt real, because a memory of him was still somehow attached to it, and that was enough for her suspicions to take hold.

And it’s crazy, because there’s also a part of Iona that  _ misses _ him—who he used to be, who he was supposed to be. He’s supposed to be her master, and he’s supposed to be here, guiding her. They’re supposed to be excited about her trials  _ together _ , because that’s what it’s been since the beginning, the only thing Pong ever wanted for her. A tiny, pathetic, sentimental part of her wants to see that through.

And then she remembers that she’ll be attending his funeral tomorrow, and it’s like the piece of shrapnel that’s been stuck in her chest lodges itself even deeper. 

A knocking at her door jolts her to alertness. Iona glances at the timepiece mounted on the wall across from her. 0130. There are only a few people she knows that would call on her at this hour, and she has her guesses.

Iona unlocks the door with a wave of her hand, hearing it click open, and the metal panel slides back to reveal her late night visitor.

Ahsoka is completely dressed for combat, her clothes looking freshly pressed and her lightsaber hilts glinting in the low hallway light. The Togruta grins at her, leaned against the doorframe. “Knew you’d still be awake.”

Iona clambers to her feet, sighing. “We need to get better sleep schedules.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Probably. So we sparring or what?”

The late night—or, very early morning—spar sessions were getting out of hand. No padawan in their right mind would forfeit precious hours of sleep, much less for more training. But Iona didn’t mind, and neither did Ahsoka. In fact, they reveled in it. There was something strangely therapeutic about the buzz of clashing plasma and air ripping through your lungs at ungodly hours of the morning. And Iona wasn’t about to sit through tonight alone with her thoughts. Those would do a hell of a lot more damage than a lightsaber.

Ahsoka hits the mats for a third time, landing hard and sliding backwards on her montrals, groaning. Iona only grins, deftly spinning her right saber around her wrist before going to offer the other girl a hand up. “You’re holding back on me.”

She takes her outstretched forearm to haul herself to her feet. “Having…a slow day,” Ahsoka wheezes, adjusting the silka beads tangled in her lekku. 

Lie. If she’s trying to mask it with exhaustion, she’s not doing it well. Iona can practically predict the falter in her opponent’s step, the slight dip of her parries. It’s dispassionate, sloppy, and very un-Ahsoka. She’s fighting to let her win, but right now, Iona just wants a challenge. 

“Oh, please. Don’t go easy on me just to spare my feelings.” 

Ahsoka rubs at a spot on her shoulder. “I’m just tired,” she insists.

Iona rolls her eyes. “Tell that to someone who will fall for it.” After training together for so long, she knew Ahsoka’s fighting spirit, and right now, she didn’t have it. “Don’t baby me. I’m the senior padawan here.”

The Togruta shoots her a dirty look that screams  _ no kidding.  _ “Maybe I just  _ suck _ . Ever thought of that?”

“Highly unlikely.” She settles into a low crouch, igniting her blades again. “Come  _ on _ . Show me whatever crazy sleenshit Skywalker’s been teaching you.”

Ahsoka sighs dramatically, assumes her own stance, and grins widely. “You asked for it.”

When their blades collide again, the force of it makes the hairs on Iona’s arms stand up. The sudden change in pace catches her by surprise, and Ahsoka succeeds in flipping her on the defensive and driving her back a few feet. Iona blocks both of the Togruta’s spinning blades in quick succession, ducking under an overhead swipe by her shoto and twisting her heel to stop her other blade near her hip. The sharp, dizzying continuity of four green blades whirling in front of her is making her head swim. She’s barely getting any room to breathe.  _ There _ she is, Iona thinks fondly.

Then Ahsoka gets cocky, feinting to one side and shifts her shoto in her hand a fraction of a second too slowly as she changes direction. Iona sees it, she knows this move, she’s drilled it a thousand times. Ahsoka doesn’t expect the resistance of her returning strike; it throws her off balance. She also doesn’t expect the arching kick that knocks her other blade out of her hand, or the Force push that sends her sprawling to the ground. Again. The tip of Iona’s saber comes to hover at the hollow of her throat. 

“Slow on the feint.” Iona smiles down at her. “But you had me up till then.” A worthy opponent, she had told Skywalker when they had landed on Umbara. She hadn’t been lying.

Ahsoka heaves a sigh of defeat. “I  _ knew _ that didn’t feel right.”

Iona just closes her lightsabers and plops onto the floor next to her, officially wiped out. For a minute or two, they just lay there on the plasticky mats, nothing between them except comfortable silence and heavy breaths. She knows that the younger girl won’t be the one to bring up the elephant in the room. That’s her business to share, not Ahsoka’s to prod at.

“So I’m assuming Kenobi told you all of it, then?”

Ahsoka sighs quietly. “I read Rex’s report,” she finally reveals. “Obi-Wan just filled in the gaps about you.”

Iona snorts. She always suspected that the Council was terrible at keeping secrets, with so many members and the terrible gossip chain that was Kenobi’s lineage. “And let me guess. It was his idea to let me throw you around a gym a couple times so I could feel better.”

She feels Ahsoka shift her head to glance at her through her peripheral. “No. That one was me.” And then, after a few beats of silence: “Figured you could use a friend.”

Her heart swells with impossible gratitude. Iona knows how to read people, but Ahsoka’s always been surprisingly well-attuned to the emotions of others. Right now, she can’t even manage the simplest words—it’s always the part she’s been the worst at. Guess there were some things you couldn’t train.

“I think,” Ahsoka’s speaking slowly now, as if moving with caution, “he also wanted me to do some digging.”

Aaaand there it is. Iona sighs as she pushes herself up into a sitting position and wraps her arms around her knees, still not able to meet the other padawan’s eyes. “So dig,” she manages, and Ahsoka lets out another sigh of her own.

“I just wanna know what the  _ kriff _ is going through your head.”

“You mean why I don’t want to take the trials.” She doesn’t mean to sound tired, but the words land anyways, heavy and irritated. “You can say it. It’s not  _ that _ hard to wrap your head around.”

“But it  _ is _ .” The plastic beneath her screeches in protest as Ahsoka swivels around to burn holes with her eyes into the backs of her robes. “Look, if you don’t want this to go back to Obi-Wan, just say the word. I’m not here to interrogate you. But I just- I don’t  _ get _ it, Iona.”

She can’t have this conversation right now. Not when she’s sweaty and exhausted and fully prepared to sink through the floor and bury herself into the dirt. Iona just stares at the toes of her boots while Ahsoka continues to ramble.

“I’ve known you since before you even became a senior padawan. Becoming a Knight was all you ever talked about. Everyone knew you’d get it first, everyone knew how much you wanted it, and now what? Krell’s gone and you just  _ can’t _ ?”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes and just buries her face between her kneecaps. It sounded so simple coming from Ahsoka, who knew so little. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Ahsoka can’t seem to figure out a fast response to that, so she just takes the beat to calm down and level out her voice. When she finds the words again, they’ve got a slight edge to them. Almost unnoticeable. “Well, will the Council let you wait? When do you think you’ll take them?”

“I don’t know.” She hates not having the answers, but she’s beginning to hate this conversation even more. “After however long it takes.”

“However long it takes to what? Get past Krell?” When Iona doesn’t respond again, the edge in Ahsoka’s voice sharpens. “Stars, Orum. This is exactly what they tell us  _ not _ to do.”

She can’t keep the bite out of her tone. “Noted, thanks.”

“So how long?” Ahsoka just ignores her blatant irritation and presses on. “A month? A year? Another decade?” Her voice rises. “How long is that braid gonna get before you can finally cut it off and take what’s yours?” Her fingers close around the woven hair behind her ear and tug at it hard.

Iona loses her cool at that, spinning out of Ahsoka’s range of motion and shooting to her feet. “Gods, I don’t know! Maybe never!”

The silence that follows makes Iona wish she hadn’t spoken at all. Ahsoka’s eyes go wide as she just stares at her from her seat on the floor, stunned. 

“Never?” she repeats lowly. “What, you’re- you’re gonna  _ leave _ ?”

Iona turns away, her stomach clenching. “Just forget it, Ahsoka. You don’t understand.”

“I’m  _ trying _ to understand! You’re the one talking crazy and giving me this leaving banthashit that just came out of nowhere—”

“You wanna talk about what came out of nowhere?” It’s a strained, muscled struggle to keep her voice from cracking. “I found out my master betrayed the Jedi Order yesterday. And then he was killed in front of me. I don’t know how you expect me to act like none of that ever happened.”

Ahsoka sounds frustratingly calm. “I didn’t say that. I just think you’re making a mistake.”

“What if it was you and Skywalker, huh?” She whirls on the younger girl again, anger bubbling dangerously in her gut. Ahsoka Tano is so easy to read. She keeps herself so unguarded, Iona almost feels bad for playing into her weaknesses. Almost. “What if Skywalker turned out to be your worst enemy, and you had to watch him die for it? That wouldn’t tear you apart? You’d just keep going?”

Ahsoka’s eyes go wide again, but she sets her jaw. “Yes, I would.”

Iona throws her head back and laughs. The sound of it is cold and unfamiliar in her own ears; she revels in Ahsoka’s taken aback expression. “That’s crap and you know it.”

“No, it’s not.” Her voice shakes with the effort to stay steady. She knows she shouldn’t, but Iona keeps going.

“Face it, Tano. You’re just as attached to Skywalker as I was to Krell, maybe even more. If it came down to choosing between him and your duty to the Order, you’d choose him.” She finds the pained twist in Ahsoka’s bottom lip to be disturbingly satisfying. “Hells, you wouldn’t even  _ think _ about taking your trials. You’d just walk right out.”

“You’re wrong!”

“Whatever.” Iona turns away without looking her in the eye. “I’m over this. I don’t need to talk to a friend who’s just going to make me feel like shit.”

She’s halfway to the door when Ahsoka’s voice stops her, chilling and angry. “Because Rex didn’t?”

She’s baiting her. Iona’s vaguely aware that she shouldn’t bite, but the name and the implication make her turn anyway. “What the kark is that supposed to mean.”

“You know what it means.” Ahsoka is so smug it’s painful. 

There’s a growing suspicion and a knot forming in her stomach, but Iona outwardly rolls her eyes and jabs a threatening finger at her sparring opponent’s face. “You better start talking straight, Tano, before I knock you through the floor again.”

Ahsoka doesn’t even acknowledge the gesture or the low-aimed blow. “I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” she spits. “Your  _ feelings _ for him.”

Her hand slips from the hilt of her lightsaber and falls limp at her side. She didn’t even know she had reached for it. Iona manages a croaked, “What are you talking about?” but she’s not fooling anyone anymore.

“You think I’m blind?” Ahsoka snaps. “You fucked up, Iona. It’s not just Krell, it’s Rex too. And now you’re rethinking the entire code because you think that this is worth throwing it out over?” 

“That’s not what it is!”

Ahsoka just barrels forward. “Well, here’s some news for you: you’re not fucking special in that. Of course we all have people we wish we could keep. Maybe Anakin is one of mine. But the difference is that the rest of us are Jedi enough to let them go.”

Iona stares at her. Where was the grip on this that she had just seconds ago?

“I saw you two, you know,” Ahsoka continues through gritted teeth. Her hands clench into fists at her sides. “I followed him. I saw him go into your room.”

What-  _ fuck _ .

“I can’t believe either of you would be so  _ karking _ stupid,” she whispers, and Iona glances up, shocked, to see Ahsoka rub furiously at her eyes. “If you wanted to fuck behind everyone’s backs, you don’t do it onboard an official military spacecraft with- with  _ people _ around.” The tail of it catches and shatters, coming out breathless and miserable and confused and painful. “Did you  _ want _ someone to see? So someone would just kick you out instead of you having to do it yourself?” She shakes her head and rubs her eyes again. “I wouldn’t have covered for you if you wanted someone to just come out with it.”

Iona swallows and finds some ragged semblance of her voice again. “Ahsoka, that’s not—”

“I saw how he looked at you when you left the debriefing.” Her heart sinks, fast and still beating, past her abdomen and through the wooden floorboards. “Were you just messing around with him? One last thrill before you leave him behind with everything else?” It’s Ahsoka’s turn to choke out a laugh. “Or are you gonna ask him to leave with you?”

Iona closes her eyes. “Ahsoka—”

“Whatever.” She sucks in an audible breath and stalks angrily past her, but stops herself at the door, her back turned. “If you want to destroy everything you’ve worked for and come up with new ways to ruin other people’s careers, be my guest. But I won’t watch.”

“Wait—”

But she’s gone.

A ringing silence permeates everywhere, through the room and down the hall, so deafening that Iona almost moves to close the doors to block the noise in the hall. But she remains rooted to where she stands on the plasticky mats, staring at the black square that Ahsoka disappeared through until the ringing has stopped. She remains there, even longer afterwards.

… 

He thought that it would be more satisfying, watching Krell get put in the ground. Maybe he thought that it would feel like the next best thing to closure. But the hopeless feeling is still stuck under his ribcage, and Rex twinges with frustration and disappointment at his own naïvety.

The funeral itself had gone as expected: mournful yet kept moving at a hasty pace, the air soaked in bitterness. It didn’t even seem like anyone was grieving openly, their stares blank and far-off as they pointedly looked anywhere except the burning body on the dais. Iona seemed to be the only one watching the flames. 

The whole thing had felt so entirely uncomfortable and unorthodox, Rex didn’t feel out of place there like he thought he would. In the midst of the quiet chaos, no one seemed to notice him and his men at all.

Rex aimlessly wanders the Temple gardens alone. He doesn’t get to see these grounds too often, and today he has a good excuse. He would’ve asked Ahsoka to come kill some time with him, but she had left in a rush without stopping to talk to him. Or given him a chance to ask why she was avoiding him. They’re supposed to be shipping off again in a few hours, and he should start heading back to prep the troops, but for the first time, Rex doesn’t feel ready to go back to work. He’s just exhausted.

He collapses on a stone bench sitting beside a tree, cranes his neck up to look at the swirling canopy of leaves above him, and closes his eyes. Listens to the breeze and appreciates the feel of setting sunlight on his face, before he’s thrown headfirst into more exploding crossfire. Simple silence is always hard to come by.

“Rex?”

Rex’s eyes shoot open at the sound of the voice, mortified. Shit, is he not supposed to be here? When he sees that it’s Iona watching him curiously from a few feet away, he feels himself go even redder. “Uh- hey.”

“Hey.” Her lips quirk up as he scrambles into an upright sitting position. She’s still wrapped in the thick brown robe she attended the funeral in; it looks too big on her, like it’s trying to bury her under heavy fabric. “Fives told me to look for you. Says you guys are shipping out soon?”

He frowns at the reminder. “Couple hours. I’ll meet them in a second.”

Iona nods and points to the bench. “Scoot over, then.”

He does, a little surprised, and lets Iona slip into the seat next to him, drawing her loose robes tighter around herself. “So. What’d you think?” She gestures vaguely. 

Rex meets her eyes again, and she raises her eyebrows. He didn’t think she would want to talk about what just happened, not now. “It wasn’t what I expected,” he says, choosing his words carefully. When her eyebrows go even higher, he relents. “It was a shitshow, yeah?”

Her lips quirk again as she hums in agreement. “Don’t know what they were thinking,” Iona mutters. “Having a funeral at all.”

“Yeah,” he agrees lowly. “How are—” Rex clears his throat. “How are you…holding up?” He can’t look at her without thinking about the last time they were alone together. He doubts he ever will.

“Fine,” she responds simply. Her mouth works like she wants to say something else, but then she smiles, a little sad and far-off, but a smile nonetheless. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Rex almost opens his mouth to disagree, but decides against it. She’s right, he doesn’t have to worry about her. Doesn’t mean he won’t. He gently nudges her shoulder with his. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Commander.”

Iona smiles again at the title. Their meeting on Umbara already feels like forever ago, the smell of ozone and dirt caked between the cracks of his armor and the first time she gave him her name to hold between his teeth like it was something worth saying over and over. This Iona, tucked onto the bench beside him, feels like a completely different person. Hells, Rex feels like a different person, too.

His comms beep loudly, and he doesn’t even have to check the incoming address to know that it’s Fives. Rex sighs and reluctantly pushes himself to his feet. “I should go. Duty calls.” 

“Wait!” Iona springs to her feet with startling speed to grab his arm. “I-”

He stares at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just…” For a moment, her eyes look alight and wild with something he can’t identify. Then she blinks and shakes her head, and her expression goes marble again. “When you see Ahsoka, tell her sorry for me, okay? I don’t think she wants to talk to me, and I just…”

He didn’t know they were friends. Ahsoka never mentioned it. But Iona trails off, looking uncertain, so he just nods and shoves his curiousness aside. “Sure.”

“And—” Her grip on his arm tightens when his comms beep again, just for a moment. “—I wanted to say thank you. For- for everything.”

Rex grins. She keeps thanking him for things that he doesn’t deserve. “See you when we get back,” he calls over his shoulder, breaking into a jog down the Temple steps before finally answering his comms. “Yeah Fives, I’m  _ coming… _ ”

He doesn’t hear the news of her departure until they’ve finished cleaning up on another sand-clogged planet, and someone tells General Kenobi about the second Jedi that the Order’s lost within the last month. 

Rex doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t even let himself consider it, just watches as Ahsoka babbles, tears up angrily and ends up stomping away. There’s no point, he thinks. He knows that if he started asking questions, he wouldn’t get the answers he was looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I know, I’m a terrible updater and this fic just takes me forever to write for some reason. My school year has also just started, so I can't make any promises about how much more writing I'll get done :( I think after this chapter, parts will start getting shorter (and hopefully slightly more frequent) and looking more like 5-6k words instead of closer to 10k.


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